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CELEBRATION 

OF THE 

BIETH-DAY OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, 

AT SALEOT, MASS., APRIL 1st, t§59. 



ORATION BY DR. GEO. B. LORING ; 

SPEECHES 

BY 

HON. JOSEPH S. CABOT, COL. J, M. ADAMS, AND OTHERS ; 

LETTERS 

BY 

HON. J. C. BKEOKINRIDGE, HON. HOWELL COBB, HON. JOHN B. FLOYD, 

HON. JEFFERSON DAVIS, HON. HENRY A. WISE, HON. B. F. HALLETT, 

HON. JOHN S. WELLS, HON. BION BRADBURY, _ 

HON, HARRY HIBBARD, GEN. J. S. WHITNEY, SAMUEL B. SUMNER, ESQ. 

S. 0. LAMB, ESQ., J. E. FIELD, ESQ., AND OTHERS. 



SALEM: 

PRINTED AT THE ADVOCATE OFFICE. 

1859, 



L^ ^ 



M 



PROCEEDINGS, &C. 



The anniversary of tlic birth of 'J'homas 
Jefferson was celebrated in Salem, on Friday 
April 1st, 1859. In selecting this day, the 
committee of arrangements were anxious to 
commemorate the date recorded in the Prayer 
Book of Jefferson's father, feeling that the as- 
sociations which cluster around the record, arc 
more interesting and valuable, than an obser- 
vance of the precise anniversary, reckoned ac- 
cording to the modification of the calendar. 
The recorded date is April 2nd, 1743 ; and 
Friday the 1st was chosen, in order to avoid 
inconveniences which would have attended the 
observance on Saturda3\ 

The Committee of arrangements was compos- 
ed of the following gentlemen, viz : — Geo. B. 
Loring, Wm. B. Pike, George Upton, "Wm. 
McMullen, Joseph S. Perkins, Geo. F. Put- 
nam, John A. Currin, Daniel Brown, Charles 
Ward, John Ryan, N. Ingersoll, Connor B. 
Swasey, D. A. Lo^rd, Darling Pitts, C. H. 
Manning, Horace Ingersoll. James Dodge, H. 

E. Jenks, Edward Wilson, Simon Pendar, A. 

F. Bosson, Henry Derby, M'. D. Randall, G. 
W. Crosby, Edward xVlIen, Thomas Looby, T. 
J. Kinsley, E. Harvey Quimby, E. H. Dalton, 
Geo. W. Estes, Wm. Leach, E. L. Norfolk, 
S. R. Hodges, S. Fuller, Henry W. Perkins, 
Charles Millett, Eben Dodge, D, B. Gardner, 
Jr., George H. Blynn, E. C. Peabody, Joseph 
RowcU, Wm. L. Batcheldcr, J. Lovett Whip- 
ple. 

Hon. Joseph S. Cabot was selected as Pres- 
ident of the daj', assisted by Wm. McMullen. 
Geo. Upton, and Joseph II. Perkins Esqs. of 
Salem, Hon. Albert Currier, of Newburyport 
Hon. Daniel Saunders Jr. of Lawrence, H. L. 
Darant of Lynn, John Carroll and Richard 
Ramsdell Esqs, of I\Iarblehead. 



Dr. George B. Loring was invited to de- 
liver the oration on the occasion, and A. M, 
Ide jr. Esq., of Taunton, to deliver a poem. 

Distinguished democrats in Massachusetts 
and from other states were invited to be pres- 
ent. 

The following report of the proceedmgs, is 
taken chiefly from the Boston Post of April 2d. 

"The anniversary was celebrated with cere- 
monies of an exceedingly interesting character, 
and in a manner becoming the sentiments of 
deep veneration entertained by the democrats 
of Essex County, and vicinity for the founder 
of their party — the great party of the union. 
Arrangements were made upon a most exten- 
sive scale, and old Salem was never the scene 
of a more brilliant or interesting festival — her 
democratic and union-loving citizens turning 
out in very large numbers to swell the general 
throng, and her streets being at certain hours 
of the (lay alive Avith strangei's both from sur- 
rounding towns and distant places. At noon a 
salute of thirteen guns was fired. At two 
o'clock the doors of Mechanic Hall were open- 
ed for the reception of those desiring to partic- 
pate in the exercises assigned for that place. 
The galleries of the large Hall were reserved 
for the ladies who rapidly filled the seats there- 
of, and while the people gathered within the 
hall, admirable music was furnished by the 
Salem Brass Band stationed in the centre gal- 
lery. At 2 1-2 o'clock the assemblage was 
called to order, by Hon. Joseph S. Cabot, and 
prayer was offered by Rev. Mr. Allen, of Mar- 
blehead. The band entertained the andience 
with a pleasing air, and then followed the 
oration of Dr. Geo. B. Loring, of Salem, and 
the reception of that gentleman was extremely 
enthusiastic." 



ORATION. 



My Friends and Countiymen: — Tlse best ] 
'gift God ever bestows upon liis children is [ 
the life of a great man. Not for cxampie j 
alone — but for guidance, fox protection, for 
preservation, for the creation of that mar- 
rellous social fabric, so diverse, so complex, 
80 divine, does the. spirit descend upon those 
whose lives arc the introduction of nev? 
thought, the commencement of new eras, the 
birth of new nations. As the broad river 
of social life rolls on, the eternal hills shape 
its course, the mountains stand there to di- 
i-ect the sweeping curves, an island, upris- 
ing fi'ora the foundations of the earth, di- 
vides it, the majestic rock breasts it -into 
eddies, and the work is done. Of gazing 
on these landmarks, the eye never tires. 
For at their feet lies the silver stream which 
they have guided on its way of benefit and 
beauty. 

No .natdon ever sprang into life without 
its heroes. In the dim light of the past we 
see them presiding over its birth, stalwart 
and mysterious demigods, the giants of olden 
time , not great perhaps to their contempo- 
raries, to their neighbors and friends, to 
their children, and fellow laborers. Not 
great to their neighbors I say ; for it is only > 
as the traveller leaves the shore, that moun- 
tain and headland rise in their full propor- 
tions before his vision, and he learns the 
grandeur in which he lias lived all uncon- 
scious. 

Now my friends, in this matter of heroes 
we of this nation possess peculiar and strik- 
ing advantages. The master spirits, who 
gave direction to cur first steps, are not en- 
veloped in clouds of legend and mystery, nor 
is their work still half accomplished. There 
are those among us who knew them face to 
face ; and already a great people enjoys the 
full fruition of all their counsels. The 
echoes of the deep and agonizing struggles 
icQ which they were engaged for us, have 



hardly died away. The events of their lives) 
arc rcc.unted to us by their contemporaries. 
The story of their action is but as last 
week's news. And while other pe-ople and 
nations see only the august shadows of those 
who shaped and moulded them into exis- 
tence, the superhuman creations of tradi- 
tion and fable, awful figures looming through 
the darkness of a feeble civilization, we 
have our heroes directly before us — their 
greatness and their littleness — their daily 
toil and their great design — their weakness 
and their strength — their divinity which 
made them godlike, and their humanity 
which made them our brethren. 

Among these great men there was one 
who, by nature and by education,* by asso- 
ciation and by habits of thought, seemed 
set apart for the work of creating that re- 
public, without which all the blood of the 
American Ee volution would have been shed 
in vain. At the close ot that contest, that 
long agony of privation and disaster, in 
which, through victory and defeat, through 
storm and shine, the great commander had 
patiently and serenely led a distracted and 
beggared community of colonies, from step 
to step, in their strife for freedom — our 
country was divided by the jealousies of 
states and the ambitions of individuals. I 
have often thought that at that time Wash- 
ington alone was our union. Massachusetts 
was then as now sharp and alert for her own 
peculiar rights. South Carolina was "arm- 
ed with jealous care," against the encroach-- 
meats of those with whom, but just now, 
she had stood "shoulder to shoulder in the 
strife for their country." Virginia could 
not forget the commerce of the Chesapeake 
Bay. Pennsylvania and Georgia, New York 
and Maryland, never forgot, that even in the 
common toil they possessed inherent privi- 
leges, which it was one great duty of their 
ca^pacity as free states to preserve and pro- 



cect. The close of tlie ^ar too sent a race 
of active, vigorous, ambitious men back to 
retirement. The smoke of the battle had 
cleared away, and the opportunity which a 
rising government would give, appeared be- 
fore them with all its temptations. The im- 
petuous and fiery Adams, the prophet of 
freedom, the orator and diplomatist, had 
been too long and too intimately connected 
with public affairs, not to feel that he had a 
right to an important part in their control. 
Hancock, the fearless and princely merchant, 
had a keen personal solicitude for the suc- 
cess of an enterprise in which he had staked 
life and property. Greene and Gates had 
fought long and well for the great consumma- 
tion, and now that it had come they longed 
to feel the sweet pressure of the laurels on 
their brows. Hamilton and Henry and 
Madison could not contemplate with indiffer- 
ence the high honors which were hourly un- 
folding before their eyes — honors which they 
had estiiblished with their earliest vigor. 
Jefferson and Franklin saw from the bril- 
liant and dazzling splendors of the most ac- 
complished court in Europe, new and more 
refulgent glories in that young western em- 
pire which their genius had developed, and 
which their diplomacy had brought into 
recognition. That was indeed the most 
trying hour in cur history. That was the 
hour when freedom was threatened with the 
horrors and trials of anarchy. The great 
principles which had been proclaimed in the 
Declaration of Independence, were enough 
to inspire the patriotism of our people during 
-ar — but those very principles might 
been perverted at any moment into au 
tment in favor of a separate political or- 
iization for each colony. And in this 
.-.ason of peril, before a common bond had 
been created, before a common brotherhood 
had gathered around one national altar^ the 
fate of the future republic rested, I am con- 
strained to believe, in the hands of one man, 
whose freedom from ambition, and whose 
stern devotion placed him far beyond the 
reach of rivalry, grand, majestic, broad as 
the heavens, and as pure. It was a time 
when upon the character of one man hung 
the fate of a nation. And it was Washing- 
ton, before whom all statesmen of that crisis 
bowcd,Washington, who had borne the coun- 
try through the conflict, Washington, strong 
in the comprehensiveness of his patriotism. 



in his universal sympathy for, and intimate 
acquaintance with, each colony, Washington, 
who stood aloof and apart, high removed by 
the brilliancy of his successes into almoefc 
supernatural eminence before a v.orshipping 
people, and who in all his human qualities 
was the model of integrity and modesty, of 
sagacity and transparency, of inflexible will 
ami aboriginal adroitness, it was Washing- 
ton alone at whose feet all jealousies were 
of necessity kid aside, and all rivalries were 
consigned to popular contempt. W^ashkig- 
ton was indeed the Father of his Country : 
but it was the great teacher of the doctrines 
of republicanism, under whose training the 
child was to be brought into the Icnowledge 
of those principles of government,which have 
elevated it to a position worthy of its high 
parentage. And it was Thomas Jefferson, 
the great apostle of civil freedom, the em- 
bodiment of democx"atic truth, the friend and 
expounder of human rights, the fearless foe 
of every form of oppression, who having de- 
clared that the colonies were and "of right 
ought to be free and independent," pointed 
out the path by which the highest glory of 
national independence could be reached. — 
Washington laid the foundation, and Jeffer- 
son built the structui'e. The one a stern 
commander, the other an ardent philosopher ; 
the one a soldier, the other a civilian ; the 
one firm as the everlasting hills in his moral, 
grandeur, the other grand as the swelling 
river in the riches of his intellectual vigor ; 
the one educated in the forest and the camp 
to all tlie robust strength and subtle pru- 
dence of an accomplished warrior, the other 
cultivated into the elegance of an accom- 
plished scholar ; the one armed with a two- 
edged sword, the other with a keener and 
more eloquent pen ; the one obedient to an 
overpowering impulse of freedom, the other 
inquiring fjid procbiraing what true free- 
dom is ; one the martial statesman, the 
other the civil statesman ; both patriots, 
both gentle in their sympathies, both defi- 
ant, both possessed of that stateliness of 
person and spirit which attends true great- 
ness, both heroes, both Americans. 

It is to the. contemplation of Jefferson 
that we arc called iipon to devote this hour, 
of Jefferson, the m:in, the patriot, the phil- 
anthropist, the statesman. 

The second of April, 1743, was his birth- 
day ; eleven years after Washington was 



5 



bom, and ten years before their native colo- 
ny was exposed to that savage warfare, in 
which the great American General took his 
first lessons in the art of war. 

His birth-pLice vras in the charming valley 
of the Kivaui.a, a rich and lusuriam. section 
of Virginia, in which arc combined the gran- 
deur of mountain scenery, and the subdued 
and placid beauty of woodland, valley and 
plain. It was a bounteous and enobling 
prospect upon which the eyes of Jefferson 
first opened. The fertile lands which lay 
around him, inspired him with a love of ru- 
ral life, with its large instincts, its deep 
► love of country, its love of everything that 
lives and moves, its love of the land ; while 
the towering mountains which encircled his 
home, stood there as types of the majesty 
and elevation of human thought. The wind 
which sighed through the "sounding aisles" 
of that old primeval forest, the storm which 
burst in madness from the hills, the mur- 
muriii^ stream tracing its way through 
lands untrod by man, the broad acres of his 
father's farm, the budding and growing and 
harvesting and reposing year, the Spring 
time promise and the golden October sun, 
the birds of the air and the beasts of the 
field, all breathed into his mind a large and 
abounding sense of freedom. 

His father was a man of gigantic stature 
and strength, patient of hardship and fatigue, 
fearless, judicious, firm and honest — full of 
tenderness and poetic sensibility, fond of 
the best English classics, and affectionately 
devoted to his family. He was a successful 
Virginia planter, as his son was after him. 

The mother of Jefferson is described as 
having had a " a most amiable andaffection- 
ite disposition, a lively, cheerful temper, 
; md a great fund of humor." Her maiden 
aanie was Jane Randolph — a name associa- 
V ted with everything princely, refined, elegant 
md hospitable in the high-toned old colony 
3f Virginia, a colony and a people from 
whence Massachusetts received the first re- 
sponse for her efforts in behalf of freedom. 

It was in this class that Jefferson found 
his early companions. He was a most ex- 
emplary scholar, and he was also the most 
agreeable participant of all the gaieties cf 
that early colonial life. Among the Ran- 
dolphs he took the lead in all social enjoy- 
ments. He was one of the most fearless and 
graceful of horsemen. He played the violin 



with taste and skill. And it was in this 
society, when he was seventeen years of age, 
that he commenced that system of intellec- 
tual training which he never discontinued 
through a long and eventful life. He was 
a fine and even critical Latin and Greek 
scholar. Ho became familiar with French, 
Italian, Spanish from time to time, and he 
cultivated that style which attracted the 
attention of the leading minds of the day, 
and led to his selection as the proper author 
of the immortal instrument, with which his 
name is proudly connected. 

In all his researches, he displayed a 
strong devotion to questions of practical im- 
portance. He was singularly impatient of 
all useless metaphysical speculation. He 
read few novel?. But wherever a great truth 
had been promulgated, the application of 
which promised to benefit mankind, his 
mind seized upon it with unerring avidity. 
While he associated familiarly and intimate- 
ly with those whom the custom of the times 
placed in the highest social rank, while he 
moved in a society possessing all the virtues 
and accomplishments, as well as all the vic- 
es of an aristocracy, his mind seems to have 
been constantly alive to every popular senti- 
ment, and quick to perceive the faintest ray 
of democratic truth. 

As a student at law, few men, not even 
our distinguished jurists, have been more 
diligent. His teacher, George Wythe, was 
one of the purest, ablest, and most profound- 
ly erudite lawyers ever produced by a State 
which has been particularly famous for 
good lawyers. In the society of this accom- 
plished teacher, and as a rival of the Kan- 
dolphs, the leaders of the Virginia bar, he 
laid the foundation of a deep comprehension 
of the great principles of civil law, as the 
basis of true constitutional freedom. For- 
tunately his career at the bar was short. — 
The fortune which he possessed rendered the 
practice of his profession unnecessary, and 
enabled him to escape all the narrowing in- 
fluences of sharp work in the practical ap- 
plication of those principles which served to 
direct his thoughts, and to prepare him for 
the high sphere of statesmanship. If Jef- 
ferson had not studied law, he could not have 
devised the Declaration — had he practised 
law, he would probably never have written 
it. 

He was about thirty years old when he 



became a politician. He brought to the 
business of politics, the training of which I 
have spoken, a mind well balanced, and a 
high and honorable rule of conduct. He 
was now just arriving at mental and physi- 
cal maturity. 

His biographer tells us that his " appear- 
ance was engaging. His face, though angu- 
lar, and far from beautiful, beamed "with in- 
teligence, with benevolence, and with the 
vivacity of a happy, hopeful spirit. His 
complexion was ruddy and delicately fair ; 
his reddish chesnut hair luxuriant and silk- 
en. His full, deep-set eyes, the prevailing 
color of which was a light hazel, were pecu- 
liarly expressive, and mirrored, as the clear 
lake mirrors the cloud, every emotion which 
was passing through his mind. He stood 
six feet two and a holf inches in height, and 
though very slim at this period, his form 
was erect and sinewy, and his movements 
displayed elasticity and vigor. He was an 
expert musician, a dashing rider, and there 
was no manly exercise in which he could 
not play well his part. His manners were 
unusually graceful, but simple and cordial. 
His conversation already possessed no in- 
considerable share of that charm which, in 
after years, was so much extolled by friends, 
and to which enemies attributed so seduc- 
tive an influence, in moulding the young 
and wavering to his political views. There 
was a frankness, earnestness, and cordiality 
in his tone — a deep sympathy with humani- 
ty — a confidence in man, and a sanguine 
hopefulness in his destiny, which irresisti- 
bly won upon the feelings not only of the 
ordinary hearer, but of those grave men 
■whose commerce with the world had led 
them to form less glowing estimates of it. 
His temper was gentle, kindly and for- 
giving, subjugated by habitual control, but 
possessing that calm self reliance and cour- 
age which all instinctively recognize and 
respect." He was never known to resent a 
personal indignity, for no man dared insult 
him. In the gay society in which he mov- 
ed, where fortunes were constantly lost and 
won on the hazard of a die, he never gam- 
bled. He was temperate in all things. He 
was precise and methodical in his business ; 
had large landed estates which he managed 
with great prudence and skill as a planter ; 
and altogether possessed a combination of at- 
tractions which gave a peculiar charm to 



that career of greatness upon which he was 
just now entering. 

It was in 17G9 that Jefferson commenced 
his political career, as a member of the Vir- 
ginia House of Burgesses ; the same year 
that this body responded to the declaration 
by Massachusetts, that the colonies possess- 
ed exclusive right of self- taxation, the right 
to petition for redress of grievances, and to 
secure the concurrence of other colonies 
therein, and the right of jury trial within 
their own jurisdiction. It was the first 
rumbling of that earthquake which severed 
the colonies from Great Britain. Between 
this and the memorable events of 1773, 
there was a pause — but by no means an in- 
sensibility of the dangers and trials which 
awaited the American people. So far as 
Jefferson was concerned, the pause seems to 
have been providential — foi- it; furnished him 
an opportunity to erect his mansion and fix 
his family as Mcnticello, that home which, 
he has rendered so famous, and which has 
been enrolled among the spots sacred to free- 
dom on the American continent. 

And now the great woi k of his life began. 
For two years he labored incessantly, in his 
state, to keep her up to the high standard of 
actien required by the crisis. With Ean- 
dolph and Nicholas, and Patrick Henry, and 
Kichard Henry Lee, he kept the popular 
sentiment of Virginia roused to a full appre- 
siation of the importance of the part she was 
to perform. Young as he was, the popular 
heart was with him. The people felt that 
while Henrj' and Lee were eloquent, and 
Eaudolph and Nicholas learned and astute, 
there was glowing in the breast of the more 
silent, but not less prompt, quick, decisive 
and energetic youth, a fire which nothing 
but death could quench, and that the path 
which he trod led up to the temple of pop- 
ular freedom. At this age he drew up that 
remarkable reply of Virginia to Lord North's 
"conciliatory proposition," a reply which in- 
spired the timid with courage, and strength- 
ened the feeble knees, and which was the 
first colonial declaration of that high deter- 
mination expressed by Patrick Henry, when 
he exclaimed to an electrified assembly of 
Burgesses — "We must fight!" Having 
thus accomplished what the times demand- 
ed of him at home, he was chosen to a high- 
er sphere, and entered congress in 1775, 
the youngest member of that bodj^ bearing 



in his hand the reply of which I have 
spoker, and stepping at once into the ranks 
of the foremost statesmen of his age. 

The congress of that day ! What a con- 
stellation ! John Adams — the impassioned, 
the irresistible, the eloquent, the ahrt, the 
indefatigable, the adroit, the courageous, the 
knight of chivalry, ready to measure his 
lance with all comers in his defense of "In- 
dependence now, and Independence forever." 
Samuel Adams — "the Man of the revolu- 
tion," as he has been called — the logical, 
the fearless, the systematical, the practical, 
the deep, the profound, the great wire-puller 
in all the earliest movements of the revolu- 
tion. Franklin — the philosopher, the tacti- 
cian, the diplomatist, the wise, nervous, 
witty, epigrammatic writer, ^\ ith a reputa- 
tion already established on both continents, 
and with a devotion to the cause of his coun- 
try which had led him to sever every tie 
that interfered with his patriotic duty. — 
Eichard Henry Lee, of Virginia, the rival of 
Patrick Henry, in that peculiar gift of speech 
which holds the world in awe, and before 
which senates bow like forests before the gale. 
McKean, the "indomitable." Elbridge Ger- 
ry, then young but bold and sagacious, as free 
and broad as the heaving and boundless sea 
upon which his eye rested in childhood, and 
as immovable as the rock-bound shores of 
old Essex, the county of his birth, tlie spot 
so rich in sons who have enrolled their 
names upon almost every bright page in 
their country's history — jurists, statesmen, 
merchants, benefactors, philanthropists, di- 
vines. Nelson, the "high-spirited." Hai-- 
rison the "bluff and hearty." Sherman the 
"uncompromising." Eutledge ;nd Living- 
ston, and Morris, "learned in the law," in 
honor liright, "without fear and without re- 
proach." It was an assembly like this in 
which Jefferson in the first dawn of his 
manhood, having as John Adams says, al- 
ready won "the reputation of a masterly 
pen," was called upon as a chairman of a 
committee of five, to prepare a "Declaration 
of Independence." 

The Declaration is innnortal, There may 
be "glittering generalities" there; there 
may be doctrines troublesome to thf rigors 
of legal investigation : there may be thoughts 
which the demagogue may pervert, and 
which the precisian may deny ; but as an in- 
spiring " tract for the times" it is unequal- 



led ; as a record of wrongs it is compact 
with graphic power ; as an appeal to the in- 
stinct and sentiment of mankind, the world 
has no parallel ; ancient proclamations grow 
narrow, modern ones feeble in their refine- 
ment, before the startling and majestic and 
all-embracing and all-sustaining announce- 
ment of principles upon which men every- 
where " free and equal" may rest the foun- 
dations of all true government. I would 
not criticise the Declaration of Independence. 
I find no cause for defending it. For in it 
I see no excuse for treason, no reward for 
anarchy, no disruption of those laws under 
which Grod created the races of men here 
upon the earth, no ground for violating so- 
cial obligations, no argument for license. — 
But I find written everywhere in letters of 
living light, a recognition of those rights 
and privileges, for the preservation of which 
" Governments are instituted among men," 
and which are open to all who rise to the ele- 
vation of free citizenship. I learn that by 
Government, self-constituted, man preserves 
his social equality, ennobles his occupation, 
cultivates his miud,enlightens his conscience, 
liberalizes his heart, and protects himself 
against the horrid devastations of ignorance, 
and bigotrj^ of superstitions, delusions, fa- 
naticism and crime. And I look up with 
reverent admiration at the heavenly heights 
prepared for associated man, by that civil 
organization in which all enjoy their fitting 
opportunities, and in which alone mankind 
can be "free and equal." 

Need I tell you how sublimely Jefferson 
bore himself in all the trials that followed, 
ever true to the great Declaration, at all 
times the right hand of AVashington, his 
counsellor and friend. As Governor of Vir- 
ginia, he defied obloquy and reproach in 
preserving the Repub.ican faith against all 
attacks. At that early day he was obliged 
to sustain in his own state, the home of 
Washington, a constitutional government, 
against a powerful faction clamoring for a 
dictatorship. He was stung by threats of 
impeachment. The invading army laid 
waste his estates with fire and sword, driv- 
ing his people into the savage servitude of 
foreign soldiery from which the pestilence 
that attends on war alone released them. 
Tortured as he was by the misfortunes of 
his country and by the injustice of his peers, 
overwhelmed with almost unmanly grief by 



domestic affliction, he never lost sight of the 
great cause, and devoted himself to the es- 
tablishment of religious freedom, and to 
the equalization of the rights of property, 
as the first steps in popular advancement. 

The complications of the contest became 
appalling — but he never faltered. The 
North had witnessed the glories of victory, 
the scared}'' dimmer glories of masterly re- 
treat, the defection and treason of those who 
could not "endure unto the end," the agony 
and the fortitude of a distressed and strug- 
gling people. The south had beheld the 
chivalrous deeds of Sumpter and Marion, 
the surrender of Savannah, the hard fought 
fields of Monmouth and Camden, and the 
threats and dangers of intrigue and cabal. 
And Virginia had become the point against 
which the whole power of the enemy was to 
be directed. And there the war ended. The 
years of doubt, during which, under the 
guidance of Jefferson as her Chief Magis- 
trate, she had exhausted her treasury and 
decimated her citizens, that her favor- 
ite son might be sustained, and her country 
made free, were rewarded with the glorious 
consummation of Yorktown, where upon her 
own soil the enemy laid down his arms, and 
the experiment of a free government began. 

And now it was JefFersou who reported 
a treaty of peace with England. It was 
be who proposed a "committee of the 
states" for common safety and protection. 
It was he who in connection with Morris 
reported a system of coinage and a money 
unit plan for the country. It was he who 
designed the national seal of the "United 
States of America." His name appears on 
all the important committees of congress 
at that time ; and it was evidently his 
spirit which controlled that body to a great 
extent in the arrangement of that form of 
confederation which served to unite the 
states in temporary bonds, until the time 
arrived for the adoption of the constitution. 
Having thus discharged this duty at hom6 
he went abroad, as Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary to act with Adams and Franklin in 
securing a proper recognition of our exis- 
tence among the nations of the earth. — 
He sailed from Boston July 5th. 1784, and 
returned Oct, 16th, 1789 — io take his 
seat as secretary of state in the cabinet of 
Washington. 

The constitution had been adopted 



during bis absence, not without difficulty, 
not without great difference of opinion, 
both as regarded its character as a sys- 
tem of government, and as regarded its 
future application. Hamilton, Madison 
and Jay, separated perhaps by their views 
of government, had yet united their strong 
powers to secure its adoption. And al- 
though by an almost spontaneous act of 
the people, AVashington had been elevated 
to the presidency, two parties already ex- 
isted, the natural consequences of our 
early history, and differing in their under- 
standing of the relations of the states to 
each other and to the general government. 
It was under these circumstances and 
in this cabinet, that Jefferson and Hamil- 
ton were first brought into close contact. 
Jefferson was now forty-six, Hamilton only 
thirty-four. The former born on American 
soil, imbued with the spirit of American 
Independence, educated into the genius of 
free goverment, the apostle of American 
republicanism ; the latter born on a little 
island among the West Indies, educated 
as a merchant's clerk, a volunteer in tlie 
American army, where by his genius and 
discipline, he won the confidence of Wash- 
ington, the advocate of a free constitution 
as the foundation of an oligarchy of educa- 
tion, ability and wealth. The one advo- 
cating a general government to sustain, 
the other to "swallow up the state pow- 
ers;" the one believing in the people as 
the origin of government, the other believ- 
ing in government as the origin of the peo- 
ple ; the one a philosopher, the other a 
logician ; the one a promulgator of general 
conclusions, and abstract views, the other 
an acute and subtle advocate; the one 
viewing society with broad expanded vis- 
ion from an elevation as high as his own 
Blue Piidge, the other concentrating his 
burning glance upon a single point of pol- 
icy ; the one the founder of the great sys- 
tem of government under which we live, 
the other the organizer of the treasury de- 
partment of the United States uj)on a plan 
which still exists as a monument to his 
peculiar genius ; the one clothed with the 
panoply of high moral self-possession, thtj 
other a humble and contrite penitent" 
after each transgression ; both sincere' 
both honest, both honorable. They re' 
maineii toarether until the 3l8t of Deceir" 



9 



ber, 1793, when Jefferson retired to liis 
plantation, to appear again in a higher 
sphere of action. In cabinet council, 
Hamilton was more than his match; and 
it was only when he appeared before the 
peT)ple that he was able to demolish his 
powerful rival, and his theory of govern- 
ment, along with him. 

It was the election of Jefferson as Pres- 
ident of the United States in 1501, which 
inaugurated that system of civil polity 
which has prevailed in our cotintry to the 
present time. It was in reality the com- 
mencement of republi(!an simplicity in the 
administratioTi of public affairs. The impos- 
ing ceremony which attended the inaugu- 
ration of Washington, the coat of arms 
which glittered upon his yellow-panelled 
carriage, his liveried servants, and his gal- 
lant equipage, the state which the Presi- 
dent and Mrs. Washington maintained in 
public, were the natural remnants of the 
ante-revolutionary courtly customs, which 
a long military life had impressed upon 
the mind of the Father of his Country. 
President Adams too, had his republican 
court, adorned with republican pomp. — 
When Jefferson assumed the reins of gov- 
ernment he rode down the avenue on 
horseback, unattended and plainly dress- 
ed. "He tied his horse to the paling which 
surrounds the Capitol grounds, and with- 
out ceremony entered the senate cham- 
ber." 

A new era had commenced. Without 
ostentation the President proceeded to 
carry out those views which he laid down 
in his tirst inaugural address : — 

"Equal and exact justice to all men of 
whatever state or persuasion, religious or 
political ; peace, commerce, and honest, 
friendship with all nations, entangling al- 
liances with none; the support of the state 
governments in all their rights, as the most 
competent administrations for our domes- 
tic concern, and the surest bulwarks 
against anti-republican tendencies ; the 
preservation of the general government in 
its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet 
anchor of our peace at home and safety 
abroad ; a jealous care of the right of 
election by the people ; a mild and safe 
fouec^hnii of abuses which are lopped by 
the sword of revolution, where peaceable 
remedies are unprovided: absolute acqui- 
o 



escence in the decisions of the majority, the 
vital principle of republics, from which 
there is no appeal but to force, the vital 
principle and immediate parent of despot- 
ism ; the supremacy of civil over the mil- 
itary authority ; economy in the public 
oxpences, that labor may be lightly 
burthened ; the honest payment of our 
debts, and sacred preservation of the pub- 
lic faith ; encouragement of agriculture 
and of commerce as its handmaid ; the 
diffusion of information, and ari-aignment 
of all abuses at the bar of the public rea- 
son; freedom of religion, freedom of the 
press, and freedom of person, under the 
protection of the habe.is corpus; and trial 
by juries impartially selected." 

May I not call this our second Declara- 
tion of Independence? May I not speak 
of the election of Jefferson as our second 
revolution, peaceable and bloodless? How 
otherwise could he hold such a place in 
our political history? No man in this day 
dare deny his political principles. He 
who was derided as a Jacobin, charged 
with defrauding the widow and the father- 
less, abused as an atheist, accused of the 
basest private immoralities, denounced by 
a partizan pulpit, opposed as they said by 
all the learning and all the decency of 
the times, held up before the people as a 
destroyer of religion and a subverter of 
good government, is now received as the 
apostle of freedom, the founder of the most 
brilliant form of government ever known, 
the creator of the only truly successful re- 
public the world has ever seen, while the 
theories of Hamilton and Adams are al- 
most forgotten, and the political policy of 
even Washington himself is almost un- 
known. Why is this ? 

It is because Jefferson had entire and 
unbounded faith in the "virtue, wisdom 
and intelligence of the people,'' and be- 
cause he thoroughly comprehended and 
thoroughly loved the political esperiment 
which began on this continent, at the 
settlement of the colonies. He has 
been charged with having brought his 
principles from the club rooms of revolu- 
tionary France. But no man can find 
them there. Eousseau, and Pvobespierre, 
and Barras, and Vergniaud, the Encyclo- 
poedists, and the Girondists, all proclaim- 
ed that the snvcrnmeut is the origin of all 



10 



power, ancJ th® regulator of alT prosperity. 
They differed from the monarchists simply 
\vo the form in which go-vernment should 
be organized. Bat Jefferson learned from 
the history of his own country that all 
power springs from the people. The Pur- 
itan and the Huguenot had fled hither from 
persecution in Europe, to found an empire 
based upon the sacredness of individual 
rights And Jefferson learned his lesson 
rfom them. It was these rights which 
were asserted on board the Mayflower as 
she was moored in the bay, in solemn sus- 
pense before that hard and frowning shore. 
It was these rights which were violated in 
Boston, and were defended at Concord^ 
and Bunker Hill. They were woven into 
the Declaration of Independence. They 
were never forgotten by thecolonies. Jef- 
ferson found them engrafted on the consti- 
tution as he understood it ; nnd ,it was the 
business of his public life to maintain and 
defend them. While others were searching 
among the ruins of decayed and broken re- 
publics, for materials out of which to con- 
struct a new temple of freedom, he seized 
upon those living and perennial principles 
Vv-iiich his own land aftbrded, and which the 
saints and martyrs of American Indepen- 
dence hastened "to lay at the feet of him — 
the great American democrat,, of him who 
taught the American people that the con- 
stitution is their property, their defense. 

The constitution — which, as interpreted by 
JeiJerson, distributes all the pOAvers of govern- 
ment among the governed. "While the fede- 
ralists of that day were laboring for the preser- 
vation of the Federal government, by giving it 
an independent authority, and a power to re- 
sist what they called "state encroachments," 
Jefferson stood forth as the advocate of dele- 
gated powers, conferred by the sovereign 
states. ^Vhilc John Adams, unmindful ot the 
strength which flowed in ui)on the general gov- 
ernment from those "little democracies" at 
whose hearthstones were kindled the fires of 
the revolution, unmhidful of the majesty of 
that voice which the American people had ut- 
tered through their representatives in times of 
trial, unmuulful of his own origin, and arro- 
gant in the possession of power, declared that 
it was the '-eommons who destroyed the wisest 
republic, and enslaved the noblest people that 
ever entered on the stage of the world," while 
John Adams was thus engaged in his old age, 
in laying the axe at the root of the tree which 
in the ardor and impetuosity of youth he had 



planted — Jefferson, relied upon the popui'a? 
branch as the very foundation of all free gov- 
ernment. To the mind of Adams, the revolu- 
tion was the means of establishing an American 
republic with a President at its Lead — to the 
mind of Jefferson, it was the opportunity 
which the cjlomes siezed for the establishme«t 
of their own sovereignty, consummated at last 
b}' the compact of the confederation of states. 
To the mind cf Adams, American freedom; was 
a boon bestowed upon the inhabitants of thir- 
teen states — to the mind of Jefferson it was the 
impulse given to a continental ''republic, and a 
blessing bestowed upon "every kindred, nation 
and tongue under heaven" asking to be free. 
Adams the busy, the restless, the fervid, could 
never contemplate his- country, withouai seeing 
himself in the foreground of the picture — Jef- 
ferson saw nothing there but a mighty people 
engaged in establishing institutions of free re- 
ligion, popular intelligence, and civil law, for 
their own elevation. Adams labored to con- 
vince the people that he was right — Jefferson, 
labored to convince the people that they were^ 
themselves right, when governed by their own 
intelligence and virtue. Adams, like his phil- 
anthropic followers of the present day, conceiv- 
ed that the people had a right to control their 
own aiiairs according to rules of conduct laid' 
down for them by himself and his party — Jef- 
ferson felt that they had a right to "control 
their own affairs in their own way, under the 
constitution." Jefl'erson felt the fuli import 
and value of citizenship. He knew that the 
privileges enjoj'ed by the humblest citizen on- 
the confines of civilization in our republic, 
shoul(5 make his hamlet the abode of jiowers as. 
high as those which find shelter at the centre of 
civil organization— a3'e, higher, for ujion that 
citizen rests a responsibility more sacred than 
potentates have ever possessed. He is the 
creator of a government. H:s voice it is, 
which says to '-one man go and he goetb, and 
to another come and he cometh." The rulers 
of the land are his delegated agents. The re- 
served rights which he possesses,, constitute a 
sovercigntj' before which PresLdents and Cab- 
inets and Senators bow in sul&mission. The 
constitution under which he lives recognizes 
his position as the foundation of all civil organ- 
ization. It is his intelligent effort -.vhich con- 
stitute the power of his people. And all the 
rights and interests of the generation in which 
he lives, call upon him to rise to that intellec- 
tual and moral elevation which can alone en- 
able him to discharge the high duties whiclii 
devolve upon liim. Pcllgion, pure and mide- 
filed, appeals to his free conscience and would 
add her graces to his life. His powers are aU. 
his own, and call upon him to be true to that 
trust which gives free scope to all attributes, 



11 



■f.nd by ennobling himself, elevates Iiis occupa- 
tion to a standard worthy indeed of being call- 
ed the wealth of a nation. 

Inspired with this thought, Jeflcrson devoted 
•himself to the work of creating our republic. 
The system of gevernment which unfolded iu 
his mind, presented to him the opportunity ibr 
that peaceful human progress for which the 
race is planted upon the earth. AVilh him, 
this was no dream, no creation of a diseased 
■imagination, but a practical realit}', to be reacli- 
-ed by the exercise of practical wisdom. AV'lien 
the early teacher of what is called liberal Chns- 
'tianity was expelled from England for his oi\iI 
and religious opinions, he found a sympathiz- 
•«r and friend in the great anthor of the "Act 
-of Keligious Freedom,'^ while the name of 
•Priestley v/as but just known on tL>is continent, 
and while Channing was but a student of the- 
ology, and only dreamed of that faith in hu- 
manity which already warmed the heart of Jef- 
^ferson as a vital conviction. The liberality 
-which filled his mind with the largest religious 
■toleration, led him to adopt that form of Chris- 
tian faith, which should furnish a place for 
<ivery variety of sect and creed in a Christian 
republic. Ho encouraged education because 
he felt that none but an intelligent people can 
be free. He declared the states to be scvcr- 
•eign, because in no other way could the exis- 
tence of our republic be established, and its 
■area be extended. He enlarged our borders, 
because he knew that the strength of our con- 
federation would increase in proportion to the 
•multitude of interests which should rally round 
a common cause. Amidst the denunciations 
'of the sectionalists of that day, who assailed 
■him as a slavery propagandist, he purchased 
Louisiana, mindful of the principle that to each 
state beloa^ed her own domestic institutions : 
and in after life he denounced the violation of 
this principle in the passage of the Missouri 
compromise. In all the measures of his ad- 
jninistration, he evinced a sagacity and fore- 
sight and ingenuit}^, whose designs are not 
even yet fulfilled, and which gave a direction 
to our republic, which no man has yet been 
able to direct. And when in after ages, in the 
high career of our confederation, the historian 
and statesman shall look back for that theory 
of -government, which has created the reful- 
gence of the heavens, by giving to each star 
its own peculiar glory, he will find that the na- 
tional greatness which surrounds him, is but 
the fulfilment of the high thoughts which occu- 
pied the mind of Jefferson, and roused him to 
bold and unceasing action. 

This is the triumph which Jefferson has 
■achieved on this continent, as a politician, a 
statesman and a philanthropist. 

He retired from the presidency and closed 
■iis public life in 1809. Demonstrations ofre- 



sjiect and affection ponrctl in ujDoa ■!aim from 
every quarter of the union — from state, city, 
county and town. In the legislature of Virgin- 
ia, the illustrious William "Wirt moved an ad- 
dress to him, declaring that — 

•'We have to thank you for the model of an 
administration, comluctcd on the purest prin- 
ciples of repubhcanism ; for pomp and state 
laid aside ; patronage discarded ■; internal 
taxes abolished ; a host of superfluous officers 
disbanded : the monarchic maxim that a na- 
tional debt is a national blessing, removed, and 
more than thirtj'-thrce millions of our debt dis- 
charged ; the native right to near one hundred 
milhons of acres of our national domain extin- 
guished j and without the guilt or calamities of 
conquest, a vast and fertile region added to our 
country, far more extensive than her original 
possessions, bringing along with ic the Missis- 
sippi and the port of Orleans, the trade of the 
west and the Pacific oceari, and in the intrin- 
sic value of the land itself, a source of perma- 
nent and almost inexhaustible revenue. * * 
From the first brilliant and haiipy moment of 
your resistance to foreign tyranny until the 
present day, we mark with pleasure and with 
gratitude the same uniform and consistent 
character — the same Avarm and devoted attach- 
ment to liberty and the republic, the same Ilo- 
man love of your country, her rights, her 
peace, her honor, her prosperity." 

For himself he says — 
" Within a few days I retire to my family, my 
books, and my farms ; and having gained the 
harbor myself, I shall look on -my friends still 
buffeting the storm with anxiety indeed, but 
not with envy. Never did a prisoner released 
from his chains feel such relief as I shall on 
shaking off the shackles of power. Nature in- 
tended me for the tranquil pursuits of science 
by rendering them my supreme delight. But 
the enormities of the times in which I have 
lived have forced me to take a part in resist- 
ing them and to commit myself on the bois- 
terous ocean of political jiassions. I thank 
Crod for the opportunity of retiring from them 
without censure, and carrying with me the 
most consoling proofs of public approbation." 

He was now sixty-three years old. He re- 
tired as be proposed to the quiet pleasures of 
his family at Monticello — but never fGi-getting 
during the remainder of a long life that he had 
a country. He lived to sec his policy sustain- 
ed. His voice was always heard in every 
crisis. He urged the division of his native 
state into counties and towns, that the distribu^- 
tion of political power among the people migi,ft 
be more perfect. He laid the foundation of 
the University of Virginia, and when the feeble- 
ness of old age confined him to his home, he 
watched for hours through a telescope the pro- 
gress of the buildinc^ whiok he had dei-iened 



12 



for the ediicalion of the people up to the stand- 
ard of intelligence and virtue required by free 
institutions. 

In the domestic circle his presence was 
charming. For his own retirement he preserv- 
ed mementoes of his wife and those children 
v;ho hadjgonc before him, and with them he 
lield his daily sacred communion. To his 
grandchildren and their young associates his 
Bociety was always a source of delight. The 
charms of his conversation, which had been 
one of his strongest faculties in public life, 
gave him peculiar attractions in the private 
circle. Here his quick sympathies were all 
alive, and although pressed upon by the curious 
and compelled to entertain hosts of admirers, 
his e(|uauimity never forsook him, nor were 
the wants of any forgotten. 

On that commanding eminence which he 
Ijad selected in early life, and named Monti- 
cello, as the spot around which all his afliections 
might cluster, he found that repose he had so 
honorably won. The broad expanding land- 
scape of Virginia was before him. From his 
threshold to the Blue Eidge lay the great valley 
stretching away in all the luxuriance of that re- 
fulgent latitude, and bounded by a horizon 
in which mountain and cloud commingled in 
the soft azure of a Southern sky. His lands 
lay all about him. The sweet associations of 
country life, upon which his 03-0 first opened, 
came back to cheer his old age, and to warm 
his heart after its exposure to a chilling world. 
He loved the soil. The plants and processes of 
nature were all dear to him. He rode his spirit- 
ed horse as no man can who has not learned 
the courage and gallantry of the animal. He 
lived on, a patriarch among his people, a philos- 
pher, a scholar, a Christian. And when the an- 
niversary of his great appeal for freedom, of the 
birth-day of ,his nation, came round, and the 
first half century of our existence closed, with 
deliberate preparation, and with that calm repose 
which belongs to a truly great life, he "wrapped 
the drai:)ery of his couch about him" and was 
gathered to his fathers. 

I cannot discuss his defects. They say he 
had no religion — but he lived and died like a 
Christian. They say he was jealous for his 
country, and too sensitive with regard to her 
freedom — but we now reap the reward of his 
labors. They say be was not logical — but his 
great mind passed on with unerring- impulse to 
conclusions which have become a part of the 
gospel of freedom. They say he would not 
have made a general — but the very tenderness 
of his scnsiljility which disarmed him as a war- 
rior, gave him immortal power as a civilian, a 
philanthrojjist, and a i)opular leadei*. They 
say he was not eloquent — but his words have 
passed into proverbs. They said he was a 
demagogue — but the people followed him be- 



cause from first to last ho maintained one all 
pervading thought for their equality and eleva- 
tion. 

The refulgence of his work still remains un- 
dimmcd — for, from ocean to ocean, his system 
has extended, embracing a continent in the 
clear pure air of popular freedom. To him 
who contemjjlates only the actors in this busy 
scene, who estimates the virtues of the people 
by the character of the myriads of aspirants 
who come and go, the sky may be filled with 
gathering clouds and gloom. But not so to 
him who remembers the trials out of which our 
nation was born. Not so to him who feels that 
the po2)ular heart still beats responsive as it 
did in the days of Jefferson, to every great 
constitutional truth upon which a popular gov- 
ernment rests. As I survey the high career oi' 
my country, and how gallantly she keeps on 
her Avay, the efforts of factions and the designs 
of the ambitious, fall all harmless at her feet. 
I cannot repine when dishonest men are in 
power, for I know that with the people from 
whom they came, and to whom they must re- 
turn, virtue and honesty still remain. I can- 
not fear, when storms seem gathering over our 
land, for I have learned in our own day, that a 
deep and patriotic sense of the sacred obliga- 
tions of an American citizen, a sense insjjired 
by sitting at the feet of our revolutionary fath- 
ers, a living faith founded on the Constitution, 
gave strength and wisdom to the voung states- 
man of New England, as he was called in a 
threatening hour from the pursuits of private 
life to the highest honors in the gift of the peo- 
ple, and enabled him to discbarge his high du- 
ties with a dignity and fidelity and courage 
which made his administration illustrious, and 
enrolled his name among the noblest in our 
nation. And I have learned also that it is the 
vetei'an defenders of the faith of the great 
Democratic teacher, whose heavens are irradi- 
ated with a golden light, as their evening sun 
declines. 1 cannot despair when I remember 
that it is the memory of Jefferson and Madison 
and Jackson, Avhich is enshrined in the hearts 
of my countrymen. I cannot complain that 
the timid and the short-sighted and the dissap- 
pointed and the petulant find cause for their 
distresses — for I know that the high design 
must be accomplished. I cannot be dismayed, 
when I contemplate the present, for I find a 
light shining out of the past which illumines 
with ever-increasing brilliancy the pathway of 
our nation. Our sun shall not go down at 
noon. For above all the noise of party strife, 
amidst the trials of adversity, and the tempta- 
tions of 2'n'osperity, that voice shall still be 
heard, which brought our fathers out of bon- 
dage, and taught the world that scU-govern- 
ment is the foundation of popular iiiteUigeuce, 
virtue and prosperity. 



13 



And, Fellow-Democrats, you who have come 
up here to pay homage to the memory of the 
illustrious founder of your part}', I indeed re- 
joice with you that the faitli of Jefferson is still 
your own. In the victories of the last half cen- 
tury, his words have inspired the contest. In 
the defeats, even our enemies have been com- 
pelled to praise him. As our Union has ex- 
panded at your hands, the glory has been his. 
As you have added State after State to the 
Confederation, you have but set new stars in 
his glittering coronet. As you have swept from 
existence a dividing line, which was but a dec- 
laration of sectional warfare, and a violation of 
the most sacred rights under the Constitution, 
you have but fulfilled his prophecy. As you 
have thi'owu wide open the doors of the temple 
of freedom, that all men might enter in, you 
have administered with honesty and fidelity the 
legacy which he bequeathed to a struggling 
world. As you have fought for religious liber- 
ty, his epitaph has been written on j'our ban- 
ners. In recognizing the rights of the States 
under the Constitution which binds us together, 
you have never forgotten the corner stone 
which he laid at the foundation of the structure. 

And when others claim the honors which 
through your fidelity have gathered around his 
name, when in the agony of long continued dis- 
aster, his enemies and yours would rally their 
broken forces Avith your own war-cry, and em- 
ulate you in praise of your great commanderj 
be sure that your triumph is complete. 

"When they who are rending this Union with 
their sectional broils, who tear in sunder the 
flag of our country, who would make the faith 
of our fathers 'of none eflect through their tradi- 
tion' — when such as these profess to prophecy 
in the name of Jefferson, I imagine his august 
form rising in majestic rebuke — " I knew you 
not." If they would honor him, let them first 
be just to the State which gave him birth, to 
the spot in which his bones repose, ^ 

For so long as our Republic shall endure, so 
long as the stars and stripes float over the sea 
and over the land, so long as the guaranties of 
the Constitution shall all be fulfilled, so long as 
the rights of our citizens shall be protected 
throughout the length and breadth of our do- 
main, the name of Jefi'erson shall live to re- 
proach a noisy, and virulent, and ambitious 
philanthropy, and to bind in indissoluble bonds 
that great traternity of which we are a part, 
and which, from North to South, from East to 
West, bears the high and honorable title of 
American Democracy. 

The band then played "Ilail Columbia,'^ 
after which the benediction was pronounced by 
Key, Mr. Allen, and the crowd dispersed. 



Banquet at Hamilton Hall. 

At the conclusion of the exercises at Me- 
chanic Hall a procession was immediately form- 
ed under the Chief Marshalship of Mr. Daniel 
B. Lord, and accompanied by the Salem Brass 
Band^ marched to Hamilton Hall, Chestnut 
street. The hall was decorated in a tasteful 
and appropiiate manner. The tables were 
laid for three hundred persons, and from 
the main table which stretched across the end 
of the hall there branched seven others. They 
were laden with the delicacies of the larder at- 
tached to the establishment of the celebrated 
caterer Mr. G. H. Wise, Upon the wall at 
the rear of the presiding oflicer two large Amer- 
ican flags were draped to either side, and be- 
tween their folds, and at the centre, there was 
suspended an engraving of Jefferson. The 
flags were united at the top by a national shield 
and above all were the words "Thomas Jeffer- 
son, Born April 2d, 1743." At a short dis- 
tance upon the right there was an engraving of 
Washington, and on the left a portrait of Jack- 
son. On the left Avail there was a portrait of 
Buchanan, and at the centre opposite the chair 
another picture of Washington. Upon gilt 
crescents, around the hall the names of the 
Presidents were displayed, and from the chan- 
delier to the walls there were festoons of red, 
Avhite and blue in graceful design and arrange- 
ment. Hon. Joseph S. Cabot presided, and 
the following gentlemen acted as Vice Presi- 
dents; George Upton, Edward D, Kimball, 
William McMullen, Joseph S, Perkins, of 
Salem, Hon. Albert Currier, of Newburyport, 
Richard Ramsdell. John Carroll of Marblehead, 
and H. L. Durant of Lynn. Divine blessing 
was invoked by Rev. Mr. Allen, and due at- 
tention having been paid to the feast which had 
been Wisely provided, the cloth was removed 
and the intellectual entertainment was intro- 
duced by Mr, Cabot. 

Speech of Hon. Joseph S. Cahot. 

Gentlemen — Having the honor to be selected 
as the presiding oflicer on the present occasion 
the pleasant duty seems to devolve upon me of 
tendering to you a welcome. I rejoice to be a 
participant with you in this festival, to find 
myself here surrounded by men bound together 
by the ties of a common political faith, moved 
to a common purpose, actuated by a common 
sentiment, assembled to commemorate the 
birth of the bold promulgator, the able defen- 
der, and eloquent advocate of democratic prin- 
ciples, to celebrate the birth of Thomas Jef- 
ferson, the great founder of the democratic 
party. 

Under ordinary circumstances the birth of 
any one is, except to those immediately con- 
nected therewith, an event hardly of gufiicient 



14 



Importance to be wortliy of any notice, for it 
seems to be the addition of but one individual 
the more to that innumerable multitude, ever 
changing and never for an instant remaining 
the same, that are, as it were on a pilgrimage 
•constantly passing over the earth's surface. 
And yet when it happens, as it occasionally 
3ias, all down through the long line of past ages 
and as it will probably continue to occur all 
through the remote future, that some individ- 
ual thus enters upon this stage of being, des- 
tined OH his maturity to exercise a deep and 
powerful influence upon his Age and Country, 
and who, from the vigor of his intcRcct, the 
force ef his genius, or the strength of his will, 
•seems capable of even shaping and moulding 
events to his .purposes, then the event loses 
■what there is of triviality in its character and 
assumes proportions even of sublimity. It is 
such as these who are to be considered as the 
guiders and leaders of our race, and of these 
■was he whose birth we commemerate. 

Few men of any age have exercised so great 
■or so permanent an influence upon their con- 
temporaries and successors ; lev/ have so suc- 
ceeded in stamping the imprint of their genius, 
and their principles, upon the gevernmeut and 
institutions of their country as Thomas Jctfer^ ' 
son, and there are but few v/hose birth is so 
■worthy of commemoratioH, especially by those 
for whom his political teachings are the cardi^ 
nal doctrines of their political faith. 

With no peculiar advantages, except those 
derived from the powers with which nature had 
•endowed him, born in comparative cbscurity, 
in a colonial dependency of the British empire, 
it might at first seem tliat he was destined to 
pass a life not raised above the level of a re- 
spectable mediocrity, and yet he lived to see 
that colonial dependency as a member of that 
powerful confederacy, assume a foremost sta- 
tion among the independent nations of the 
earth, and himself in acknowledgement of his 
•attainment and in reward of his public service 
elevated to its highest dignity. 

We have come together then, gentlemen, to 
celebrate in the birth of Thomas Jetlersou — 
that of the author of the Declaration of Amer- 
ican Ir.dependence, of whose principles and 
the measures to which ttat declaration lead be 
"Was the able advocate and unswerving defender 
— of one who materially assisted in severing 
the bonds of vassalage thart held his country in 
subjection — of him who •was among the f oun- 
'ders of oar republic — of the third President of 
the United States during whose administration 
^f that great office, by fiis statesmanship and 
foresight in the acquisition of Louisiana an em- 
pire was added to the union, and an outlet for 
the products of the valley of the Mississippi se- 
cured to the commerce and markets of the 
Xvorld. 



It is not my purpose, r.or decs it seem within -i 
my province to attempt the eulogy of Mr. Jef- 
ferson, indeed, if it were, already this day has 
his character been so faithfully delineated, his 
great public services enumerated, and his claims 
to the aflcctious and gratitude of his country- 
men so clearly vindicated that any further at- 
tempts seem superfluous and yet, I hope to be 
excused if I ventuix), for a few moments, to 
dwell upon one of the aspects in which his life 
and character may be viewed, as especially iu- 
tercst-ing to those of our own political organi- 
zatio-n. 

XMl'. Jefferson may justly be regarded as the 
founder of the democratic i^art^', as the expo- 
nent of those political principles that obtained 
an ascendency with the people at his elevation 
to the presidency, and that have since, with th'c 
exception of one or two brief intervals, down 
to the present time, continued to influence or ■ 
control the measures and policy of the general 
government. 

The cardinal principles of that party thus 
inaugurated and since repeatedly sanctioned by 
the people, by their votes, as derived from his 
teachings are, tliat all authority emanates from 
the people — tLiat the government of the United 
States is a government of limited powers as 
defined by the constitution adopted by the 
states at their entrance into the confederacy — 
that aU powers not expressly granted are ■with- 
held ; and that in the exercise of these reserv- 
ed pov/crs each state is sovereign and indepen- 
dent — -that as the people of each state, so the 
people of each territory when about to bo 
established as a state, have the exclusive right 
to adopt such local government and d'o- 
mestic institutians as they may think re- 
quired by their wants, free from any control or 
interference except that arising from the single 
restriction imposed by the constitution that re- 
quires that the government to be established 
shall be republican in form. ^ 

The democratic party demand that the gen- 
eral government in the exercise of the authority 
confided to it, shall in its domestic policy be 
administered so as "to promote the greatest 
good of the greatest number," that is, the' 
greatest good of the whole people, and that in 
its intercourse with foreign nations in the lan- 
guage of the illustrious Jackson "it shall ask 
for nothing but what is right, and submit to 
nothing that is wrong." 

The democratic party is the party of free- 
dom desirous of extending the blessings of con- 
stitutional liberty to every nation capable of 
its enjoyment. It is, too, the party of pro- 
gress, ready 'to adopt all constitutional means 
tliat tend to advance the national interest or to 
improve and ameliorate the condition of the 
people, >vtiilst at the same time opposed to all 
ri-^sh innovations or meatjures of doubtful cxpe- 



15 



diencj, it is the great conservative party of the 
country. The sympathies of tlie democratic 
party are not coufiucd to the natives of our own 
country but are extended to all who here seek 
a home or an asylum, and it stands ready to 
receive into the communion of citizeixship all, 
no matter of what nation oi iginally, who are 
I)repared to assume and fulfill its duties and re- 
sponsibilities. 

The Deniocratic party is the national party, 
its standard is the Hag of the Union, its patri- 
otism is confined to no fixed territorial limits 
or boundaries, but is expansive in its charac- 
ter and reaches not only to what is liow, but to 
■what shall hereafter become the extremest verge 
of the republic. 

Such, gentlem,en, is the Democratic Party 
and such are its principles, and it is only by a 
strict adherence to these pruiciples, especially 
to that great doctrine of State's Rights, a doc- 
trine that forbids all interforence with the Gov- 
ernment and institution of a State by the other 
States or General Government, and that secures 
to the people of the States the exclusive right 
ot deciding upon their own State institutions 
and policy that the peace and harmony of the 
Confederacy can be maintained. ^ 

Even from the commencement of its princi- 
ples and the era of its foundation, a violent and 
powerful hostility to its principles and its suc- 
cess has been manifested by jiolitical organiza- 
tions and combinations acting sometimes under 
one name, sometimes another, but all imbued 
with the same spirit, and actuated b}' the same 
motive. At present we see arrayed against it 
an unscrupulous combination, which, tho' com- 
posed of discordant materials, is in this united, 
that it seeks the overthrow of the Democracy — 
a combination whose only hope of success is in 
making itself sectional by uniting one section 
of the Union against another section of the 
Union, which, Ijunder the pretence ot defending 
the clanns of fice labor, is ready to commit an 
encroachment upon the rights of many of the 
States by virtually denying to th.era a claim to 
a share in the tenilory acquired to the Union 
at the expense ot the common blood and com- 
mon treasure — .which, under the specious guise 
of a morbid philanthroj)y in its zeal for what it 
calls the welfare of four or five millions blacks, 
seems utterly regardless of the peace and hap- 
piness of twenty -five millions of whites — which 
openly denies its obligation to a plain require- 
ment of the constitution — which openly sets at 
nought a decision of the highest judicial tribu- 
nal, and which seems ready to adopt any means 
for the attainment of its object, no matter what, 
even though such should jeopardise the exis- 
tence of the confederacy. 

But efforts of such a character and for such 
a purpose must fail of success — the patriotism 
and good sense of the people alike forbid it. 



We have no occasion to despair of the Eepub- 
lie — such attempts to overthrow the immutable 
principles and great truths that are the founda- 
tion of the Democratic party, and from -which 
its ascendancy with the people results, must bo 
as futile as the waves of ocean lashed into rage 
by the fierce storra.s of Winter, as they beat up- 
on, our iron-bouiy.1 coast, to sweep away the 
rcclcy barriers that nature has created as a 
rampart against their fury. I^et the Democra- 
cy preserve its integrity and seek in the teach- 
ings of its great founders for its rule of faith, 
let it maintain unimpaired its party organiza-. 
tion and discipline, a discipline that while it 
allows ^ difl'erence of opinion upon questions 
of expediency permits no departure from prin-. 
ciple. Let it as of old bear upon its standard 
• — '■'■ Union, harmony conccssion-^every thing 
for the cause, nothing for men,'' and then in 
the future as in the past continued evidence 
will be afforded of the truth of that announce- 
ment oX Andrew Jackson, of that brave, tha4 
noble, that wise and just old man, who ''though 
now dead yet spealvcth to us," an announce- 
ment whose utterance by him rang like the 
sound of a trumpet through the land, ''the con- 
stitution and the laws are supreme, and the 
Union is indissoluble." 

Mr Cabot's remarks were frequently inter- 
rupted by applause, hearty and long continu- 
ed. At the close three rousing cheers were 
given for the speaker. 

Mr. Wm. B. Pike, of Salem, was introduced 
as toastmaster of the evening, and gave the f ol-- 
lowing as the first regular sentiment — 

Tli-e. American 'Diviocracy — True to the princi^ 
pies laid down by Jefierson, and inoo,rj)orated iu 
the Constitution of the United States. 

The President said that they had expected 
the pleasure of the con^pany of lion. Bi;nj. 
F. Hallktt, but that gentleman being engage 
ed upon a capital trial in Boston, had been 
unable to attend. Dr. Loring having been 
called upon to represent Mr Hallett, responded 
by exijressing his inability to discharge satisfac- 
torily so difficult a duty, and after complimen- 
ting Mr H. as one of the tried standard bear- 
ers of the party, read the following able and 
beautiful letter; — 

Boston; March 31, 1859. 
Gentlemen : — 

The professional duties of counsel in a capital 
trial just commenced in the circuit court, couipel 
me to relinquish the pleasure I had anticipated of 
being present at your well timed festival in honor 
of the birthday of Jefferson. 

It was said, many years ago, by one of his biog- 
raphers, that it was the fate of Thomas Jefferson to 
be at once more loved and praised by his friends, 
and more hated and reviled by bis enemies, than 
any of his compatriots. 

That was true in his lifetime. At his death all 
statesmen, all parties all mankind united in canon- 



IG 



izing bis virtues. But now, and what perhaps most 
of all endangers Ills lame, in thirty-three years after 
his decease, his worst enemies, because they are the 
worst enemies of the union, attempt to claim him 
as the apostle of their creed of Jjibertj' without law 
Because he was the great apostle of civil and reli"-- 
ious freedom, regulated by laAv. You do well there- 
fore, on this day, to rescue his memory from such 
unhallowed uses. 

It was the fate of Mr. Jefferson during his life- 
time, to be misrepresented as to his principles of 
popular government. It is his fate after his death, 
to be misrepresented as to his opinions upon the 
duties of the states to each other, and to the union 
under the constitution. 

I have not time, nor is a letter a proper medium, 
to enter into an exposition of the relations of the 
democratic party to Mr. Jefferson, from the first 
division of parties in the federal union, to the pres- 
ent. 

But if I were called upon to name the one dis- 
criminating principle which has guided him and 
them from the foundation of that American Inde- 
pendence which he first embodied in his grand dec- 
laration and which has marked the broadest and 
most enduring line between the two policies that 
have divided the statesmen and the parties of the 
country, I should find it in that comprehensive 
policy, inaugurated by Jefferson, of the extension of 
the territory, and the increase of the states of this 
nnion. 

We owe to him more than to any one man, but in 
common with other statesmen the democratic and 
at the same time conservative elements of our 
republican form of government. But we owe to 
him almost alone, the extension of the territory of 
the republic. 

Democracy, as developed by Jefferson, was the 
problem of man's capacity for self government. It 
sought first the largest individual liberty consistent 
with well ordered government. That was the re- 
public within the state. It then applied a larger 
IH'inciple of union in a general government of del- 
egated powers from the states, and yet conserving 
the equal rights of each of the states. Eeachiug 
beyond this it sought for a still more enlarged and 
comprehensive policy that should go onward pro 
gressively, extending territory and increasing states 
to cover the whole continent with commonwealths, 
each independent within its own sphere, and all 
united in a general government, supreme only in 
the limited and certain powers conceded by the 
states. 

This policy required absolute political equality 
of the new with the old states, and absolute equal- 
ity of all the states in all newly acquired territory. 
This was the com])rehensive policy of Jcfifursou from 
the beginning. That is he comprehensive policy 
of the democratic ])arty now, and that is the only 
governmental relation to slavery which they hold 
under the constitution, as a national party. 

On no other principle could the thirteen original 
states have now become thirty-three. 

All our history shows that the democratic party 
were with Mr. Jefferson in the initiation of this 
grand policy of .American republican empire. His 
and their ojiponents resisted it ; and the slavery el- 
ement, in the new States and territories which con- 
gress had no right to meddle with, has always been 
the pretext for that resistance. 

The federal statesmen of his time, no doubt hon- 
estly, feared the extension of territory and the ad- 
dition of distant states as i'atal to the republic. But 
all the obstructions to the enlargement of the U. 
States have, from the beginning, come from the 
party opposed to Mr. Jefferson and to democracy. 



This was the marked dividing line between parties 
in 1800, and it is equally marked in dividing them 
now. It was Louisiana then. It has since been 
Florida, Texas, Oregon, California, New Mexico, 
and it is Cuba now. 

All the New England statesmen of Jefferson's 
time not of his party, resisted the extension of ter- 
ritory and the increase of state.. In 179G they op- 
posed the admission of the first new state formed 
out of territory ceded to the United States, Tennes- 
see : alleging that it was because , she held slaves. 
But in 1802 they resisted the admission of Ohio, 
though a free state, formed liy the liberal endow- 
ment of Virginia out of the north western temtory 
because as they then said, it would depopulate New 
England and carry power from the Atlantic to the 
west. 

And because Mr. Jefferson approved the ordi- 
nance of 1787, framed under the confederation, and 
before the constitution had formed the union, it is 
assumed by modern sectional "republicans," that 
he was a sectionalist. They forget that it was the 
beloved state of Jefferson, standing at the head of 
the slaveholding states, then a majority in the con- 
federation, Virginia, that was the granting party 
to that noble gift and compact of cession to the 
north. Nor do they choose to remember that iu 
that same ordinance the statesmen who made it, 
wisely comprehending the adoption of the territory 
solely to free labor, carefully preserved the rights 
of the south to reclaim from that territory all fugi- 
tives from service. A strange paternity indeed, for 
those who resist unto blood and disunion, that Jef- 
fersonian compact of good faith between the states 
since engrafted into the constitution ; and who 
now use all their power in legislatures to nullify the 
constitution and laws of the union, which they have 
sworn to support and maintain. 

Now if any young man is desirous of knowing to 
what party Thomas Jefferson belongs, and to what 
policy he himself owes the honor of being a citizen 
of these United States as they now are, second in _, 
power to no nation of the earth, and superior iu 
good governments and private rights over all ; let 
iiim take the map of North America and cross off 
the accessions of territory and states made by the 
Jeffersonian democratic policy since 1802 ; before 
Louisiana, Florida, Texas and California were ours. 
See British America stretching across the continent 
from Nova Scotia to the Pacific Ocean, from New- 
foundland to the Russian settlements, from Davis 
Strait to the Arctic. See the very back bone of 
the United States broken — all west from the mouth 
of the Mississippi to Lake Superior, Louisiana, 
Florida and Texas, resting on the Gulf of Mexico 
south, not our sister states, and our marts of free 
commerce, but colonies or dependencies of Groat 
Britain ; for if Jefferson had not made the treaty with l 
Napoleon, Louisiana would have been, in ninety 
days after, the conquest of England, with her fleet 
then on the way to wrest it from France. Florida 
too, would liave fallen from the feeble hands of 
Spain to England. Texas, if rejected, would liave 
become her dependant or ally. Oregon would have 
been a parcel of the new ''Victoria" to be formed 
out of the vast possessions of the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany. Mexico would have retained the golden Cal- 
ifornia still a desert, and not a stripe of the Ameri- 
can flag would have touched the endless .shores of 
the Pacific or the walors of the Gulf of Mexico 

AVho would now wi.sh to be an American with 
such a narrow heritage, bouml within the folds of 
an over.shadowing iJritish Empire in North Ameri- 
ca ? ')r that other alternative of a great southern 
confederation of rei)ublics, comprising all this re- 
jected territory with Mexico, and Central America, 



17 



md guided by the indomitable statcsmansMp of our 
own revolutionary I'ace, controlling the markets 
and the industry of the world, by holding the great 
staples of that industry in their hands ? 

And that is not so, we owe it to the large policy of 
Jefferson and his Democratic compatriots. There 
is the history. Read it. In 1802 Spain owned 
Louisiana, and we had a poor treaty with h r for 
the right to deposit American goods to New Or- 
leans. Spain broke the treaty and forbid the de- 
posit. President Jefferson demanded redress, and 
was answered that Spain had ceded Louisiana to 
France. Napoleon had no na'/y to protect it, and 
England was about to dispatch her fleets for its 
conquest. Thus the purchase of Ijouisiana from 
France was the only measure to secure the free 
navigation of the Mississippi. 

Jefferson took the responsibility for posterity and 
achieved it. On the 2Sth of October, 1803, Andrew 
Jacksok, a Senator from that same Tennessee 
which New England had refused to admit into the 
Union, rose in the Senate of the United States, and 
laoved that the Senate do advise and consent to 
ilie ratification Of the treaty made at Paris, April 
30th, 1803, between the United States and the 
French Republic, by Robert R. Livingston and 
James Monroe, and Barbi Marbois. " New Eng- 
land Statesman and New England politicians op- 
posed to Jefferson, all opposed it." What, they ex- 
claimed, pay fifteen millions for a place of deposit 
for Western produce ? This is indeed insufferable ! 
Why, if they have that our New England lands will 
become a desert from the contagion of emigration. 
And then they fell to ridiculing Mr Jefferson and 
lais "Salt Mountain-' in Missouri. Why, if logic, 
like malleable glass, were not amon^- the lost arts, 
we might wonder a little that the dead Jefferson 
should be now claimed by a party whoso living 
Patriarch here in Massachusetts, the venerable Jo- 
siah Quincy, stood at the head of opposition to that 
grand Jeffersoniau policy of extension, with or 
without slavery, when ho moved in Congress the 
tinjiea^hmem of Thomas Jefferson for purchasing 
Louisiana ! And who again, when ijouisiana ask- 
ed to be admitted a State with her slave population, 
<leclared in his place (January 15, 1811)—'- if this 
Jsill passes vt is virtuollij a dissdution of the Union; 
(iiid as it will he the right of all, so it will be the du- 
ty ofso7ne, to prepare for a separation, ^7eacc«i/y if 
they €an forcibly if theij must P Then it was that 
first rose the sectional cry of 'no more slave states,' 
and so it has gone on ever since, until the cry is no 
more free states without negro suffrage and negro 
equality ! And thus we trace down the dividing 
line between Jefferson and sectionalism, until we 
find the now miscalled "republican" party, doing 
.iust what the opponents of Mr. Jefferson did in 
1802, when they voted against the admission of free 
Ohio, viz : voting against the admission of free Or- 
egon because she will not consent to absorb the 
negro race in her body politic. And this they do 
upon the avowed doctrine that Congress has the 
power to make or amend Constitutions for tLe new 
states and for territories, so as to regulate the po- 
litical status and condition of their inhabitants. 

Now, that was the very heresy in the Federal 
Government most denounced by Mr. Jefferson, 
touching the power of congress to limit the sover- 
eignty of Missouri in 1821. " The real question," 
.said he, in his letter to John Adams, i,s — " are our 
slaves to be presented with freedom and a dagger ? 
Jor if Congress has the power to regulate the con- 
dition of the inhabitants of States, it will be but 
another exercise of that power to declare that all 
shall be free" 

3 



And this heresy so denounced by Jefferson, is the 
precise doctrine to-day, of Mr. Seward's -'irrepress- 
ible conflict" to make all free or all slave States. 

He who moves a step in that direction, travels 
farther and farther from Jefferson. Why the only 
event that ever raised a doubt in the mind of that 
calm philosopher of the perpetuity of the Union, 
was the attempt made by the North in the Missouri 
controversy to draw a section line between the free 
and slave states. " liike a fire bell in the night it 
awakened and filled him with terror." From the 
battle of Bunker Hill to the Treaty of Paris, said 
he, vre never had so ominous a question — a geo- 
graphical line, drawn in the opposing moral and 
political views of sectional parties, and held up to 
the angry passions of men with every local irrita- 
tion to make it deeper and deeper, until it should 
beceme the line of separation of the states. And 
this idea, once suggested, would brood in the minds 
of all those who prefer the gratification of their 
ungovernable passions to the peace and union of 
the country. The old schism of federalists and re- 
publicans threatened nothing like this, because it 
existed in every state, and united them by the fra- 
ternization ef party. But this sectional division of 
parties on geographical lines was a blow at the 
grand experiment in America which is to decide 
whether man is capable of self-government. Nay, 
it was treason against human hope. 

Such were the best considered views of the illus- 
trious sage in the calmness of his retreat, and near 
the close of that grand life which he had given to 
his country. And these warnings and rebukes, then 
so solemn and momentnus, to whom and to what 
do they now apply, with renewed force, but to the 
leaders and the purposes of that sectional party of 
to-day, calling itself "republican," and yet aiming 
to shatter the republic into angry, disjointed and 
hoistilo confederations, on cither side of a geogra^jh- 
ical line? 

If they indeed respect and venerate Thomas Jef- 
ferson, let them heed the admonition that comes to 
them from him, as if uttered but yesterday. 

" Would tbey," said he, " but weigh the blessings 
they will throw away by disunion, against an ab- 
stract principle more likely to be effected by union 
than by secession, they would pause before perpe- 
trating this act of suicide on themselves, and of 
treason against the hopes of the world." And still 
more suggestive of the present, among his last 
words ever uttered were " the hope that the mass 
of his honest brethren of the northei'n states wonld 
discover the use designing men ivere making of 
their best feelings, and see the precipice to which 
they are led, before they take the final leap." 

These are the lessons of wisdom and of warning 
to his countrymen which come down to our time, 
and, as if a special legacy, to the young men of 
America, from the great statesman whose advent 
as the Ajjostle of Freedom under Government, of 
Liberty within Law, you to day commemorate. 

Taking these principles of popular government 
and to an united Republic of independent and ex- 
panding States for their guide, the party which 
has nearest followed the teachings of Thomas Jef- 
ferson has never failed and never can fail to be tbe 
party of Union, of State Rights and of national 
greatness ; and no party, class or section repudiat- 
ing them, in their relations to the whole country, 
can justly claim to be either Jcffersonian, Nation- 
al Democratic or Republican. I have the honoi to 
be, With great respect. 

Your obedient servant, 

B. P. Hallett 
To the Committee of Arrangements. 



18 



Second sentiment,— 

Virginia— The Mother of the States ; the home 
of Jefferson. 

The following letter from the Governor of 

Virginia, Hon. H. A. Wise, was read amid 

applause :• — 

Richmond, Va., March 20, 1859. 

Gentlemen— I am happy to see the spirit of De- 
mocracy rise up in old Essex, of Massachusetts, to 
celebrate the birth-day of Thomas Jeflerson. His 
tomb has inscribed upon it his best eulogy. He 
wrote the Declaration of Imlependence— was the 
author of the Act of Religious Freedom, and was 
the Founder of the University of Virginia. But 
this is no epitome of his benefactions to mankind ; 
it was all there v.'as room for on a grave. His life 
was a library of useful kuowledgci and a long se- 
ries of actions, most efficient and practical in poli- 
tics— the results of which this nation and the world 
have felt and are now witnessing, I hope, for great 
good. He knew how to govern what we had, and 
to acquire more, in peace and in good faith. He 
was the great equalizer andleveler of his day, but 
he levelled upwards. His democi'acy exalted man- 
kind, for he loved letters and law, and the people 
and the p-ublic good He was morally and politi- 
cally brave, as well as politic and prudent, and his 
success proved his sagacity to be sharpened in part 
by his courage. He Avas a student of measures 
more than of "theories, and originated more practi- 
cal plans of administration than any other man, 
except the first President, under whom he assisted 
the first and foundation policy of the United States 
—the policy of Peace with Foreign nations. 

The Great Apostle of Liberty—" Louisiana and 
Peace"' ought to be added to his epitaph. 

Yours, truly, Henrx- A. Wise. 

Wm. B. Pike, &c., Committee. 
Third sentiment ;— 

Our Sister States— We know no cast, no west, 
no north, no south. 

The president in response to this toast read 
the following sound and eloquent letter receiv- 
ed from Hon. Jefferson Davis: — 

Washingtoiv', March 14, 1859. 
Gentlemen — I have the honor to acknowledge the 
receipt of your very kind invitation to meet the 
democrats of Essex county. Mass , and to unite with 
them in celebrating the birthday of Thomas Jef- 
ferson. 

Fully concurring with you as to the jpropriety of 
commemorating an event which gave to our coun- 
try the author of the Declaration of Independence, 
the great Apostle of American Democracy, and ex- 
pounder of religious liberty, I regret that it will 
Dot be in my power to be with you as invited. 

It is fortunate for our country that its early his- 
tory presents examples of patriotism, wisdom and 
virtue, which serve as guiding .stars to posterity ; 
more fortunate still that they have left us an im- 
perishable record of opinions so verified by experi- 
ence as to seem almost the result of inspiration, to 
which in all times of confusion we can turn as to a 
light which leads us to the original and just nnder- 
standing of our political institutions. 

If in the progress of events the mind of any one 
should be dazzled by the splendor of our national 
greatness, and be made forgetful of the sovereignty 
of the states, he has but to turn to the writings of 
Jefferson to find the purpose, and the theory on 
which the states were united. 
Or if a mind of different character, in the securi- 



ty and repose afforded by the shield of a united 
people, should forget the necessity of co-operation, 
and to exalt the individual dignity of the states, 
should seek to paralyze the arm of the general gov- 
ernment, in the same and cotemporaneous texts, it 
will find the necessity of the ligament which binds 
it together, ajid learn to realize how much the 
steadiness of our step depends upon the support of 
a hand, the presence of which can only be unheeded, 
because the want of it has not been felt by this, 
our prosperous generation. 

I hail with pleasure this indication that my bro- 
ther democrats of Massachusetts are aroused to the 
necessity of counteracting the baneful influences 
of the hour, and are seeking to recall the popular 
mind from the pursuit of speculative pseudo phi- 
lanthropy, to the contemplation of historical truth. 

Though there is much in the present circumstan- 
ces of our country to create apprehension, we should 
not yet despair of the republic. Our government, 
resting on the consent of the governed, has no such 
liability to be overthrown as belongs to those which, 
lifted aliove the people, reel at their giddy height, 
and stand upon pillars embraced by Sampsons who 
have only to will it in order to tear them away. 
With us the people are the government, i-estrained 
by limitations imposed by themselves and for them- 
selves. To make war upon the government, then, 
would be suicidal, and cannot be anticipated until 
madness and venality have usurped the seats of 
reason, and virtue. Therefore, my ' friends, in the 
darkest hour I have been hopeful, have stood as 1 
now stand, expectant of that reaction which the 
country needs, and which for its peace, its honor, 
and its progress, has already been too long delayed. 

Again thanking you for your kind consideration, 
I am, very respectfully and truly, your friend, \ 
Jefferson Davis, 

Messrs Geo. B. Loring and others. 



The fourth sentiment was 
the United States." 



The President of 
[Loud cheering. 

Dr Loring said that Hon, Isaac Davis who 
was expected to respond, had been prevented 
from attending by the death of a near relative; 
& that he would read the following letters from 
the Vice President and distinguished members 
of the Cabinet. Pie paid glowing compliments 
to these statesmen, the mention of whose 
names was enthusiastically received ; and con- 
gratulated this country that its destinies were 
guided by the veteran leader of the democratic 
party, aided by the high abilitj^ which he had 
called into his Council. The letter fiora the 
Vice President is as follows : — 

Washington City, March 12,1859. 

Dear Sir — I thank you for your friendly 
letter urging me to be present at the celebra- 
tion of the birthday of Thomas Jeiferson, to 
take place at Salem on the first of April. I 
cordially sympathise with the movement, but 
it will be impossible for me to attend ; nor can 
I send j^ou a letter for publication, as I am in 
the midst of preparations for immediate depart- 
ure from Washington, and have scarcely time 
to turn about. Please accept this apology, and 
believe me, Yours truly, 

John C. Breckenridge. 
To Wm. 5- Tike, Esq., Chairman Com. of Arrangts. 



19 



The following letter from Hon. Howell Cobb, 
Secretary of the Treasury, was next read : — 
AVashington City, March 19, 1859. 

Gentlemen — It is in no spirit of mere for- 
mality, that I express my regret in not being 
able to attend your proposed celebration of the 
birthda}- of Jefferson. 

I should be gratified to visit your state, and 
form a more extended acquaintance with that 
portion of your people who profess the doc- 
trines and seek to enforce the principles of con- 
stitiitional liberty taught by the great Apostle 
of American freedom. 

It Avould give me pleasure to join tlie patriot- 
ic sons of New England in renewing our com- 
mon vows of fealty to the Constitution and the 
Union, which Jefferson labored hard (o estab- 
lish and perpetuate. It is not only a duty but 
a pleasure you propose to discharge — and I can 
only repeat the regret I feel in being obliged 
1)^ pubhe engagements to deny myself the 
privilege of being present to participate in 
them. 

Allow me to offer 3'ou the following senti- 
ment for the occasion : — 

The constitutional principles taught by Tiiom- 
as Jefferson — May our descendants be able to 
add to the sentunent — " and practiced by our 
-fathers." Yours, very respeetfully, 

HowEM, Cobb. 

Messrs G. B. Loring-, Wm. B. Pike, George 
Upton, and others, Com. of Arrangements. 

The following letter was read from Hon. J, 
B. Floyd :— 

Washingtgn, March 25, 1S59. 

Gentlemen — I i-egret to say that tire nature 
of my official engagements at this time, puts 
it out of my power to accept your mvitation to 
participate in the celebration of Tliomas Jeffer- 
son's birth day, at SaJem, on the 1st of April. 

Thanking you, however, for your courtesy 
and attention, I am, gentlemen, very truly. 
Yours, John B. Floyd. 

Messrs Wm. B. Pike, and others, Committee 
of Arrangements. 

Fifth sentiment — 

The State of Mai^ie — May she again be what she 
once was. the star that never sets. 

Col. J. M. Adams, Editor of the Portland 
Argus, responded briefly. To his mind Jeffer- 
son was the perfect type of Democracy, and 
bis memory should ever be held in deep ven- 
eration by the recipients of the blessings of that 
government for the secure establishment and 
perpetuity of which he so patriotically and 
fearlesslj' labored. He expressed his thanks 
for the complimentary manner in which the 
State of Maine had been alluded to, and tho't 
she now stood in a false position before the 
country. The day was not far distant when 
she would stand right. 



The following letter from Hon. Bion Brad- 
bury was then read: — 

Eastpokt, Me., March 24, 1S59. 

Gentlemen : — I have the pleasure to acknowleclge 
your kind remembrance, in the invitation I have re- 
ceived, to he present at the celebration oi' the birth- 
day of Thomas Jefferson at Salem, on the first of 
April next. 

The commemoration of this event is fit aucl op- 
portune. 

Jefierson was the greatest political philosopher of 
his age, as well as its most sagacious practical 
statesmen. 

He regarded the American system as embodying 
the true idea of government— not absolutely perfect, 
but as near perfection as can be reached by mortals 
—and the union of the states as the sheet-anchor of 
th-at system. 

When, in his retirement at Monticello, he was 
watching with anxious eyes, the progress of the 
great experiment of self-government, planned by 
himself and his coadjutors, he was hlled with ap- 
prehension by the danger wliich threatened its suc- 
cess from the formation o'i geographical 2'artics. If 
the agitation of the slavery question, which result- 
ed in the Missouri compromise, came upon his ear,«! 
'•like a fire-bell in the night," and seemed to him 
the " knell of the Union," l)ow would he now trem- 
ble for its safety when the formation of a geograph- 
ical party is openly proposed for the purpose of tak- 
ing possession of the governmcntand a great states- 
man publicly avows the doctrine that free and slave 
states cannot co-exist under the constitution. 

The consideration of the wise teachings and union- 
loving example of the immortal author of the Dec- 
laration of Independence can but serve to quicken 
the patriotism of the nation and assuage that spirit 
of sectional jealousy and rancor which has of late 
made such fearful progress in the popular mind. 

I regret that i cannot be present irpon an occa- 
sion of so much interest. With great respect, your 
obedient servant, Bion Bradbury. 

Wm. B. Pike, Esq., and others Com. of Arr. 

The President read this sentiment, offered 
by Wm. D. Chamberlain, Esq., of Lynn; — 

Massachusetts, the early defender of the immortal 
Jefferson — May she soon be found in the front rank 
ot his political worshippers, in the true democratio 
sense. 

Dr. X-oring said that it seemed indeed hard 
for a/democrat to respond in these days to such 
a sentiment. Massachusetts has long since for- 
gotten her early love. But to show how warm 
a democratic heart kill beats within her bor- 
ders, and that the faith of Jefferson was not 
wholly forgotten he would here read the fol- 
lowing letters from some of her truest sons. He 
was sorry to say that legislative duties had pre- 
vented Gens. CusriiNG and Butler from ful- 
filling an engagement to be present on the oc- 
casion, but he knew that every democrat would 
foreo-o the pleasure of listening to these able ad- 
vocates of democracy, the Tnore cheerfully, 
when he felt that they were «ustainfeg the con- 
stitution and the laws against the republican 
force of the Massachusetts legislature. The 
duty which kept them away, was that which 
they owed to the people, who stand superior to 



20 



all party requirements. He read the foliowing 

letters : — 

Speingfield, March 21, 1859- 

My Dear Sir : — 1 have received your polite invita- 
tion to take part in the celebration of Jefferson's 
birthday, at Salem, on the 2d proximo. I assure 
jou it would give me great pleasure to accept that 
invitation, but my engagements are such, that I 
■cannot reasonably hope to be with you on that oc- 
casion. 

Permit me to add, that in my judgment, wo have 
Teached a time when every patriotic citizen of our 
republic is emphatically called upon, to seize every 
fitting opportunity to re-awalcen the sentiments, 
and to revive the teachings of those eminent men 
Yrho laid the foundation of our governmental insti- 
tutions. 

Your proposed celebration of the birthday of that 
•great a])ostle of civil and religious liberty whose 
political principles have ever been recognized as 
cardinal doctrine-s by the democratic party, and 
whose teachings that party have so long followed, 
as a safe guide in political action, will offer an in- 
viting occasion to renew and revive that patriotic 
devotion to our whole country as at present united, 
•which the signs of the times invest with pre-eaiinent 
importance. 

Commending then year attempt to do something 
by your celebration, to re-construct, and to keep 
alive in Massachusetts a healthy political sentiment 
b.y looking as patriots, and not as mere partizans, 
to the record of our fathers, 

I am with great repect your obd't servant. 
James S. Whitney. 

W. B. Pike, Esq, Chairman ol Com. of Arr. 

Gt. BaerikgtoNj March 29th, 1859. 

Pear Sir : — I regret that 1 cannot participate 
■with the democrats of Salem and vicinity in cele- 
brating the birth day of Jefferson. The demonstra- 
tion proposed has a peculiar appropriateness now, 
when the opponents of democracy so strikingly an- 
swer the description which was given of the Fede 
ralists in 1820, by the statesman whose name and 
virtues you would aid to perpetuate. Said Jeffer- 
son in tlie turlmlent time to which I have alluded, 
"They" the Federalists "are taking advantage of 
the virtuous feelings of the people, to effect a divis- 
ion of parties by a geogi-aphical line ; they expect 
that this will insure them, on local principles, the 
majority they could never obtain on pi-inciples of 
Federalism. They are wasting Jeremiads on the 
onisdfies of slavery^ as if we u-ere advocates far it.'''' 
"It is not a moral question, but one merely of pow- 
er. Its object is to raise a geographical principla 
for the choice of a President, and the noise will be 
kept np till that is effected. It is a ladder fou rivals 
climbing to power." 

That was true of the Federalists in 1820, is true of 
the opponents of the democracy in 1859, and the 
same factious spirit which the fathers of democracy 
discovered and fought against remains to be en- 
countered and subdued I trust, by the sons. 

With hearty concurrence in the object of the oc- 
casion, I remain, respectfully yours, 

Samuel B. Sumner. 

John A. Curriu, Esq, Sec. of Com. 

Greenfield, March 29th, 1859. 
Gentlemen: — Your favor of the 4th Instant, invi.- 
ing me to be present at Salem, on the first of April 
and to join in celebrating the birth of Thomas Jef- 
ferson was duly received. I have delayed a reply, 
lioping to be able to accept the invitation, but liiiul 
that engagements in the court, whose session has 



been protracted bejond my expcctatio'n, and will 
continue through the entire week, will require my 
presence here on the day of your celebration. I I'e- 
gret thia extremely, as nothing would aCbrd me. 
more pleasure than to unite vvith the democrats of 
Essex in commemorating the birth of the great 
apostle of American democracy. 

Cordially approving the object of j'our proposed 
celebration, and with sentiments of high respect for 
you personally, 

Gentlemen, I have the honor to be your most 
obd't. servant. 

Samuel 0. Lamb. 

Jehu A. Currin, Sec. and others, Com. of Arr. 

Stockbridge, March 26, 1859, 
My Dear Sir: — Yoursof the 'JJst inviting me to 
be present at the celebration cf the birth day of Jef- 
ferson has this moment been received. To year- 
self and the committee I am under obligations far 
the invitation. I sliall be with you that day cer- 
tainly in spirit, and shall use every exertion to be 
there in body. 
I am very respectfully, your most obd"t. servant, 

J. E. Fields. 
John Curriu, Esq., Sec. ^ 

EicIiardKamsdell ofMarbleliead, in response- 
to a call from the chair, made a few remarks, 
closing with : 

Acquisitim! of Ciiha — PeaccaWy if we can; at 
any rate, Cuba. 

Mr. Cabot gave : 

Our Adopted Citizens. 

Dr. Loring read the following sentiment 
from Mr Thomas Looby : 

Black EcpuUican Consistency — In celelu'ating 
the birthday of Jefferson, who,, in his first inaugu- 
ral address, uttered the immortal sentiment, tliat 
we should entertain a due sense of the cqi^al right 
of all, to honor and confidence, from considerations 
not resulting from birth or condition, but from ac- 
tions and a high sense of the pvivilegcsl enjoj'ed ; 
and that equal and exact justice should be render- 
ed to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, po- 
litical or religious. 

]Mr. Cabot read.- 

New IlampsJiire — The Nc/V England State in 
which the country found a faithful and illustrious 
President. 

Dr. Loring in response, spoke of the admin- 
istration of President Pierce^ as one in 'rvhich 
the great principle of seli-government laid 
down by Jeflbrson, was ably and fearlessly car- 
ried into operation. He felt proud of the dis- 
tinction which had thus fallen upon New En- 
gland ; and he knew that among all our citizens, 
at home and abroad, there was no one, whose 
heart was more truly with tliem, than his who 
under the soft skies ot Southern Italy, never 
forgot his obligations to his own land, and al- 
ways bore in warm remembrance the memory 
ol those illustrious men, whoso principles had 
guided him in his career of greatness. 

He regi-ettcd that no son of New Hampshire 
was present. Sidney Webster Esq. was in the 
hands of a physician, who had forbidden his 
heaving his room, and lie assured the audience 
that that physician had shut off as good a 



21 



democratic speech as had ever been listened to. 
In the absence of Mr. Webster, he would re- 
peat the words of other true democratic sons 
of New Hampshire, and he read the tollowing 
letters ; 

ExETEK, N. H. Marcb 30, 1859. 

Gentlemen:— -I thank you for tlie kind invitation 
to attend the celebratiou'of the birthday of Jeffer- 
son, but my engagements are such that I cannot do 
so without great inconvenience. It is the pride of 
•every civilized country to refer to their great and 
good men who have by purity of life, by brilliant 
genius, by intellectual strength, and bravery upon 
the battle field, and by patriotism and statesman- 
ship renowned the countries of their birth. Such 
men are like majestic head-lands or towering land- 
marks which guide the wanderers from afar, and 
around which centre the interest and admiration of 
all. They are the great links in the extended chain 
of human events, which happily unite the diEFerent 
periods of existence, and they will continue to be 
the distinguished of earth, until Christianity shall 
lose its interest, and science, genius, learning and 
patriotism cease to be honored acd respected. 
Such men seem to have been created for particular 
occasions. Moses was the man to guide the ancient 
captives, Paul of Tarsus to urge forward that faith 
which was renewed beneath the splendor of the star 
of Bethlehem, Coesar to lead the Roman legions, 
Cicero to impress the minds of his countrymen with 
the principles which then controlled the civilized 
world, Cromwell to guide his countrymen through 
turmoil and national distractions, Martin Luther to 
j^enerate and push forward the religious retormatioa 
of his time, Napoleon Bonaparte to unsettle the 
concentration of political power by the claims of 
right divine, VYashington to guide the American 
army through the trying scenes of the revolution, 
Jackson to rescue popular rights from the control of 
combined wealth, and political corruption, and 
Jcfl'erson to impress upon the minds of the founders 
of this republic, and the democratic masses of this 
nation, the genuine doctrines of a republican gov- 
ernment. 

The leading idea which Jefferson advocated be- 
fore and at the time of the formation of the Amer- 
ican Union, was the capacity and ability of the 
American people for self-government. Many doubt- 
ed and strongly opposed his theory to the extent he 
claimed, but opposition only gave renewed vigor to 
his arguments, which resulted in placing the ballot 
in nearly every man's hand, with freedom of action, 
only to be controlled by a written constitution. 
And it is well, especially at this day, when such ex- 
traordinary efforts are in operation to influence the 
action of the ballot by x^rejudice, bigotry, sectional- 
ism, and fanaticism, to re-examine the faith and 
principles of that great American .statesman, and if 
po.s.sible to impress upon the public mind an accu- 
rate and definite idea of the true principles of our 
government, which he and the other founders of 
this republic advocated and sustained. That this 
nation can loLg continue a united and prosperous 
people sectionally hostile to each other, increasing 
as it does day by day, is certainly impossible. Ad- 
mitted or legally determined constitutional lights 
of men, or of states, should be universally acquies- 
ced in, until modified by an amendment of the or- 
ganic law, and upon questions of expediency un- 
less there is to be some time when we are to have 
some fixed, definite, and settled political and gov- 
ernmental doctrines and principles, time will only 
find us a distracted and contentious people instead 
of an orderly progressive law-abiding constitution- 



ally governed nation. Thus far the democratic sen- 
timent has controlled, and my faith in the future 
success of its doctrines is yet unimpaiied ; and I 
cannot believe that New England so deeply in- 
iiaterested in the perpetuity of this union, and so 
extensively connected in the business and social 
relations of every portion of the republic, can long 
be deluded and controlled by the false and fatal 
doctrines which now guide and direct her. And if 
your celebration shall tend as I trust it will to cor- 
rect public sentiment in violation to these matters 
you will be .justly entitled to the thanks of every 
true national man. 

Very respectfully your obedient servant, 
John S. Wells. 
Dr. Geo. B. Loring and others. Committee. 

Bath, N. H., March 14th, 1859. 

My Dear Sir : — I am sorry that engagements 
about home, together with poor health, will prevent 
my being with you on the occasion of the birth day 
of Jefferson. 

The subject is indeed grand, and the whole affair 
would be of a kind most agreeable to me. 

Accept my thanks for the kindness which has 
prompted your invitation, and be assured that I 
am most sincerely yours, 

II. HiBBAKD. 

Wm. B. Pike, Esq. Chairman Com. of Arr. 

W. B. Pike Esq. in response to a call gave : 
Thomas Jefferson — Great among great men, and 
a right use of that greatness, in the cause of hu- 
manity, made him great in the hearts of the i)eo- 
ple. 

The President retired, and Mr. Pike took 
the chair, and gave : 

Hon. J. S. Cabot, President of the Day^-the emi- 
nent merchant, the consistent and unwavering 
democrat, the sound statesman. 

Capt. Charles Upton, in response to a call, 
spoke most eloquently and practically in de- 
fense of the gunboat system, as one of the 
most powerful engines in modern warfare ; 
and he gave : 

Our country — aright or wrong — still our country. 

Mr. Pike read : 

Cuba — We trust soon to hail the day when the 
stars and stripes shall wave in triumph over the 
vine-clad hills and fertile valleys of one of Colum- 
bia's fairest isles. 

Charles P. Thonapson of Gloucester respond- 
ed. 

The following sentiment by John A. Currin 
was read : 

The Orator of the Day — A true representative of 
the Young Democracy. 

Dr. Loring replied that he rose " for the 
first time to-day," to respond to the sentiment 
which had been aimed at him. He defended 
the choice of the day selected by the commit- 
tee of arrangements, and complimented them, 
that each man had performed his part well. 
The enthusiasm which had been manifested, the 
encouragement they had met witli from the 
party in the country, the eloquent letters which 
had been read, a band of true men marching 



22 



through our streets as the followers of Jeffei'- 
son, all indicated that the democracy wn'? still 
true to its founder. He hoped he should nev- 
er grow old in such a cause, and he felt that 
perennial vigor belonged to those who sustain- 
ed the unfading principles of the Constitution 
as taught by Jefferson. Our opponents, he 
said, may endeavor to pervert those principles 
and wrest them from us, but they would al- 
ways find themselves as they were in the cele- 
bration of the birthday of Jefferson eleven days 
behind his faithful and consistent admirers. 
He wanted no " new style" for the patriot and 
sage, whose memory they had met to celebrate, 
and he left it for others to modernize and aba- 
litionize the day of his birth, as they were en- 
deavoring to modernize and abolitionize his 
I'ecord and his doctrines. 

Capt. Chas. Upton gave the following quot- 
ed toast ; 

An Amei'ican always kneels only to liis God, and 
with his face to the enemy. 

By Norman Story of Essex ; 

Those clergymen who preach Fremont politics — 
May their days be few and others take their office. 

By R. liamsdell, of Marblehead. 

The Clergy — While armed with the sword of the 
Spirit, may they always wield it iu the cause of re- 
ligious liberty. 

Mr. Edward Foley sang "Eed, White and 
Blue." 

By. R. Eamsdell. 

The Ladies — At all times and on all occasions we 
regard them as our choicest luxuries. 

By Henry Derby. 

Elbridge Gerry, the patriot statesman, and Wm. 
Gray the patriot merchant — The exponents and rep- 
resentatives of the Jeflersonian democracy. All 
honor to their memories. Massachusetts was hon- 
ored in the election of these gentlemen to the first 
offices in the state in 1810. 

Wm. H. Burbeck sang "Nine cheers for the 
girls we love." 

Jona. H. Orne of Marblehead responded to 
^ call, and made a short speech, in which he 
said Marblehead had given seven or eight hun- 
dred votes for Jefferson to thirty or forty for his 
Opponent. 

Nathan Clark Esq., of Lynn having been call- 
ed upon, made the following graceful and ap- 
propriate response. He said ; — 

Mr. President: — 1 came here not for the purpose 
of saying anything myself, but to listen to the ut- 
terance of other.s— the veterans and leaders of the 
democracy, whose faithful aud eminent service in 
behalf of democratic principles renders it peculiarly 
appropriate that their voices should lie heard on an 
occasion like this, instituted in commemoration of 
the great apostle and founder of those principles 

Listening to the utterances of these to-daj-, 1 feel 
that I have been led to a still greater appreciation 
of that wonderful character which has stamped its 



impress so incffacably upon the policy and institu- 
tions of our country. 

And not only have I been inspired with a deeper 
reverence for the character of Jefferson, but with a 
deeper devotion to that great political party which 
for more than half a century has upheld the prin- 
ciples and perpetuated the policy which he inaugu- 
rated. 

I am impelled hy this feeling to express the hope 
that each return of this day may witness all over 
our land, gatherings of the democracy similar to 
this in which we have joined to-day, and that this 
anniversaiy may thus become sacred in the annals 
of the democratic party. 

By J. J. Dalrymple : — 

The memory of Jefferson, and the union of the 
United States — may they be as enduring as time 
aud as la sting as eternity. 

Samuel Whittemore gave — 

rhos. Jefferson — Though dead, bis memory yet 
lives in the hearts of the people. 

By J. M. Adams of Portland — 

The Democrats of Massachusetts — Firm, able and 
indefatigable in support of true Democratic princi- 
ples. Tlioy have richly deserved success ; may they 
soon obtain it. 

By Capt C. II. Manning, of the Liglit Ar- 
tillery — 

The Volnuteer Soldiers of the Kepublic. who 
waved our banners in triumph over all the ram- 
parts of Mexico — may our eagles once more build 
their nests in her mountain heights, and drive from 
her plains the vultures that now prey on the state, 
that the principles of Jefifersonian Democracy may 
illumine the Land. 

By John Ryan, Esq. — 

The Union of States — the union of hearts, the un 
ion of hands — the flag of our Union forever. 

Bj^ W. G. Munroe of Lynn — 

Jefferson, Jackson and Buchanan, the great tri- 
umvirate of a constitutional Democracy — Traduced 
and reviled for their official acts in life by a bigot- 
ed and partizan opposition, history has, and ever 
will, do honor and justice to their names and mem- 
ories as true friends to an extended, united and har- 
monious confederacy. 

Sir. Pike read — 

The Caterer of the Evening — Maybe always be 
as liberal as he has been Wise this evening. 

Wm. H. Burbeck sang " Big Plum Pud- ( 
ding." 

By Geo. R. Mason — 

Enemies of the Administration of Thomas Jeffer- 
son — Grandfathers of the enemies of the present Ad- 
ministration, 

By J. H. Stacy of Gloucester. 

The principles of Jefferson form the platform of 
the National Democrats of old Essex county. We 
defy the devil to get us off if he can. 

By E. C. Peabody, Esq.— 
The natuial tendency of the Eepublic — The whole 
continent and the adjacent islands. 

Mr. Edward Foley sang "Magic Mouth." 



23 



By Col. Moses Tarr of Gloucester — 

The President of the United States. 

By Capt. C. H. Manning, 

The Flag of onr Country, may its glittering stars, 
and field of blue, be frozen to the very top of the 
north pole, while its waving stripes flap on the wa- 
ters of Cape Horn. 

By Capt. D. B. Lord. 

The American Democracy — Still true to the prin- 
ciples of Jefferson. 

By Thomas Kinsley — 

The Thirty-three States — May they be peopled 
by Democrats in sufftcient numbers to overpower 
the black Eepublicans. 

By G. L. Chesbro of Gloucester. 

The memory of Jackson — May it long be cherish- 
ed by every American citizen. 

By William T. Fowler. 

Why is Pike's Peak like the Salem Custom House? 
Because we have a Pike peaking around us. 

By Charles Estes of South Danvers. 

The State of Maine — Once the Star in the East — 
Temporarily obscured by clouds, may it be only to 
emerge in greater splendor. 

The following from Hon. J. W. Proctor was 
read. 

• It is glory enough for any man, when assoc iated 
With John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, to have 
been admitted by them as their superior. This is 

true of Thomas Jefferson. 



By George W. Kenny. 

Our Country — Not divided by wrong. 

ByThos. Kinsley, 

Tbe Salem Band. 

Band — " Auld Lana: Syne," in which the au- 
dience joined, and then dispersed. 

The success of the celebration was most 
gratifying. As a movement indicating that the 
truths of democracy still live in the hearts of 
the people, it was significant of an earnest and 
resolute determination to be true at all times to 
the faith of fathers As a reunion of friends it 
was cordial and cheering. As a stimulus for 
action, every man present felt new courage 
for the contest with the opponents of the de- 
mocracy. The sentiments expressed by the 
able and distinguished members of the party 
who furnished their counsels for the occasion, 
roused a renewed determination. And for the 
time all other considerations were laid aside, 
in a liljeral, generous, unanimous and hearty 
resolution to do all that democrats' can do, to- 
wards perpetuating the memory of Jefferson 
as one of the proudest possessions of the party 
which cherishes that memory in every state in 
our confederation. 



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